When All Else Fails
by Slayde Demise and Alexia Rose
Summary: AU. Imagine. A world without Eggman, a world where GUN never shot Maria, a world where Shadow was still frozen, but earlier in his life. A world where everyone from Sonic team was brought up by real parents in a place where nature ruled. This is that world. And it's about to get messy. (Zombie Fic)
1. Prologue

Okay! New fanfic, you guys may not appreciate me starting a new one but having multiple story is good for when I get block (Which I have on Doomsday right now)

This is a zombie fic. So if you don't like that you should probably turn around now. Pairings and main characters are:

Shadow Amy

Knuckles Rouge

Sonic (undecided)

Tails (undecided)

Slayde Alexia

Well Sonic and such don't belong to me, Slayde does so does Alexia. Enjoy, read and review.

**When All Else Fails**

_Prologue_

_*Maria's POV*_

_Hacking into these things is starting to get a real bore now. Just how many firewalls do these things have? _I asked myself as my hands darted across the keyboard in a timely fashion. I knew they'd detect my presence in mere minutes so I had to finish up quickly. I was seconds away from giving up on my search and finding out where the next GUN base was when I happened upon the two words I was looking for. 'Project Shadow.' I almost cried in happiness, I had been searching for what was just past the band of three decades. They were keeping him in a base deep in the forest; Ori. _Of course, the bloody thing is literally hundreds of square miles. _I quickly hacked further to find the longitude and latitude, it seemed that there was simple a tiny base with next to no soldiers guarding it as its purpose had been long forgotten over the past thirty years. I quickly went to the front of the van that I was in. I had inherited some of my grandfathers genius but it ended up being more mechanical. Like my father. "Reece, we had a new objective." Reece was my hand build robot and did my driving for me.

"Yes mistress, heading to the downloaded coordinates. Difficulties to be expected on rough terrain." The robot reeled out. I nodded, knowing the robot was programmed to understand, and went to lay down in my bed. It'd take a few hours to make our way there.

My dreams were suddenly woken by a gentle rocking. I quickly glanced around to see that the van had just been parked, Reece turned to look at me. "Good timing mistress. Do you wish for accompaniment, or shall you go in alone?" The robot asked. I hopped up and grabbed some of my stuff I would need, various lock picking devices and such, finally plugging an ear piece in my ear.

"I'll need you to relay through where I need to go. I shouldn't run into any complications, but you never know." I stated to my trusty companion. He swiftly moved over to the computer in the back of the van in a speed that surprised me. I never got used to how fast something so heavy could move. I hopped out the back of the van and looked around at him. "I'm going in right away. Hack into the cameras and be my eyes." I told him as he turned to the keyboard and got to work as I stealthily dashed across the forest floor.

"All outside cameras images have been frozen. Good luck mistress." Reece reeled off. I continued, but ran a bit faster this time, only having to look out for possible guards rather than cameras as well. I reached the entrance to the base almost immediately, it looked like it sloped down into the base. "Warning, three people coming to the door, likely the patrol for outside. Suggest hiding nearby and sneaking in before the door closes." I quickly jumped to the side and climbed on top of the tunnel that protruded out of the earth. Seconds later the doors opened and three men in a typical GUN uniform stepped out. I waited until I heard the door start to close and quickly did an athletic manoeuvre to swing inside. The door shut with a thud just as I landed. "I'll be keeping track of you and looping cameras that you approach. For now just head down the stairs. This complex seems to be far bigger than what was previously indicated." I sighed. _Why can't anything be simple?_ I asked myself, running down the hall and taking turns as instructed, hiding when needed. It took half an hour but I finally managed to find what I was looking for. Entering the room I found a large tub hooked up to various machinery, I peaked inside, yet could barely see a thing through the glass. Swiftly I made my way over to the control panel. It was dusty and covered in a layer of grime. I swept it off with my hand and hit a couple of keys. The thing came to life.

**Project: Shadow**

**Status: Cryogenically frozen**

_It's him_ I thought to myself before getting my hacking tools out. Several seconds and I already had full control, obviously the software hadn't been updated for years. I clicked on drain and the liquid inside the pod rapidly thawed and receded. The pod opened to reveal a little bundle of black and red. The little baby Shadow who was stolen from the lab before he could develop, almost driving my grandfather to insanity, yet luckily the cure had been found due to that very incident. I then made the promise I would free him before he could be used as a weapon. I picked up the little bundle of fur. It looked like he was sleeping, that would be useful as it meant I could go along quietly. I took one step out of the room and suddenly an alarm was going off.

"Reece! What's happened?" I panicked over the microphone, quickly dashing out the room fully and rushing down the hallways.

"It seemed they had an alarm to be triggered if the door was opened while the pod was opened. I didn't forsee this, it was an unusual form of a warning mechanism. I'm coming in." Reece announced quickly before the com went dead. _Shit_ I thought, I knew my way back, my photographic memory remembered the whole journey, but I didn't want Reece to get himself hurt, or destroyed. I continued the way I came swiftly, not caring for cameras anymore, I could hear them not too far behind me. I continued running until I had made it past halfway which made me confused. I was sure I should have seen Reece by now as he was faster than me. I quickly ran up the stairs that lead to the entrance and found it wide upon, stuck by something too simple to be true, a steel pipe. Reece was still nowhere in sight. Dashing to the van I found it in camouflage mode, making it all but invisible to the naked eye and if I didn't know where it was I doubted I'd have ever found it. I sat and waited, oddly no one came up for five minutes and I started to wonder whether Reece had been apprehended when suddenly he came bursting out the door, removing the prop like it was no more than tissue paper between paper. The doors close themselves slowly, damaged from being held open so extensively. Four soldiers managed to successfully get out and started shooting at him as he run. He ran funnily, like he was holding something. I saw of the bullets hit Reece and I knew that he would be unable to drive. Swiftly I grabbed Shadow and put him inside the cot I had prepared long long ago. Starting up the van I looked expectantly to the back of the van, suddenly it opened and Reece dash in, placing a blue and black bundle not unsimilar to the red and black one right next to it.

"Reece what's that?" I asked, knowing full well what it was. Reece just jumped back out of the van.

"Insufficient memory, data has been corrupt. Go mistress, leave." He announced as he slammed the back door shut. I drove off quickly hating every second of it. I glanced in the mirror seeing Reece holding off the soldiers as best he could before a tree came and hid him from my view.

Hours later I was still driving in the infernal forest, lost completely. Luckily I had stumbled across a dirt road and made my vans tracks look like it was going one way but turning in it as it was completely compact and didn't leave a trace of my turning, making it look like I was going in another direction than I was if they so happened to find the tracks, they would lose us. A village suddenly came into view. I entered it and looked around for a bit, getting stares from people. It seemed they didn't get many visitors. I quickly continued through and found a town less than a mile away. It's population was slightly over five thousand. A good size to hide in, but no so big that it was seen by many countries. I hadn't even seen this settlement on a map before. I drove around a bit until I found an area of newly built houses, I swiftly entered the agents at the end, it seemed that the agents were suspicious, but none of them expressed it. Most people probably came here if they were on the run for something. I was told there was two other towns nearby within five miles and that one had a populous of three thousand and the other of two thousand. Not to mention nine villages each with various populations of five hundred to a thousand. It was the perfect hiding place from GUN, and they would never expect me to be right under their noses. I quickly bought a house on the spot, much to the surprise of the agents, thanks to the inheritance I had received from my grandfather. Driving my van into the garage. I forged adoption papers for the two little bundles in the cot sleeping still and picked up the black and blue one. I looked into his cute little features as he gave me a dopey and confused look. His face resembled Shadow's strikingly.

"It looks like they did experiments to you with Shadow's DNA little fella." I told him, he just tilted his head in a cute way and started wiggling his arms towards me, like he wanted a hug. "You're a cute one aren't you." I cooed to the little hedgehog as Shadow woke up and looked at me with his cute eyes. "This is going to be crazy." I murmured to myself as I picked up Shadow in the other arm and hugged them both.


	2. The Beginning

_Chapter 1: The Beginning_

I'm Amelia Rose. But my friends just call me Amy, or Ames. Two guys even call me Rose, but more on them later, in fact, it was those two who suggested writing this diary of it all in case anyone ever wanted to know! I'm a happy cheerful fun loving girl, whose greatest happiness is in her friends. Hmm. Okay. So recently I haven't been _quite_ myself, but these are difficult times indeed, and odd things have happened. Maybe I should start from the beginning... Ah yeah. The beginning...

September Friday 13th 2012

_Gonna be late, gonna be late. _I thought to myself. It was meant to be my first day of college, and I was already going to be making a bad impression upon my teachers. I quickly glanced in the mirror at myself. I was a pink hedgehog with shoulder length quills, wearing skinny jeans and a purple t-shirt with a logo on it covering my oddly slender body which I was lucky enough to inherit from my mother, yet thanks to my father genes didn't compromise on strength helping me to be the best on my old schools athletics team and allowing me to join the local kendo team. Having a Japanese mother made me appreciate the culture more than most people at my age, allowing me to explore other corridors of my life. My father was British and it was here, in Outsta, where I was raised and taught after my father 'stole away' my mother on a trip her family was taking to the world kendo championships and they just so happened to stumble upon each other while my mother was exploring the city. It was love at first sight and they moved in together almost right away before packing off to live in a quiet town called Daston deep in the country with little contact with the outside world as the closest city was a hundred miles away, with barely a village laying in between due to the dense forest Ori.

However, despite its isolation it had its very own college. The amount of people in the college was small as only those from the other two towns and several surrounding villages attended, not to mention the inhabitants of Daston itself of course, but on the upside just about every person of 17-19 did attend, as most wanted to try and move onto university to escape the town that many thought was dull and lifeless. I personally didn't know what I wanted to do once I graduated college, but I doubted I would stay here even if I did love it. There was just so much to be experienced!

I rushed downstairs to be confronted by my mother. She was a pink hedgehog that looked almost exactly like me, except older of course, and she had blue eyes, I got my dad's green eyes. She didn't say anything as I rushed past her and out the door with no breakfast but she did give me 'the look' which meant that I was going to be in trouble when I got home. I cringed inwardly before I started sprinting, I had been practising on my running lately as two of my male friends had learned to condition their bodies to move and react far faster than the average Mobian. I had been trying to learn off them and although I was no were near their speed, as they could outrun a car on the motorway running _backwards_, I had, however, managed to learn how to run faster than the negligible pace the buses drove at as could easily make it to the centre of town faster than any unlucky vehicle that was caught in the morning traffic that came from the other villages and some from the other, smaller towns.

Breathlessness was just starting to take a hold of me as I reached the centre of town. I quickly checked my watch. _Five past? Damn, I'm late! _I thought as I quickly dashed up the stairs. I quickly pulled out a small piece of paper out my pocket. _Room 220, great, I think that's on the other end of the building. _I looked at the first door as I exited the stairwell. _201. 202. 203. 204. 205. 207... Eh? What the? No double check later Amy, focus. _I thought as I passed the doors, finally I reached 220, quite literally the last room on the floor. I quickly knocked and entered.

"Sorry I'm late!" I piped up to the people in the room, my eyes quickly scanning it for anyone I might recognise whilst trying not to look like I was being impolite to the teacher. A female and rather irritated looking purple Raccoon scowled at me.

"It best not happen again. Anyway, as I was saying..." She continued on the drabble that she was going on about before I entered the room, I glanced at the name on the board. 'Mrs Turner' _Oh great, the only teacher that I've heard bad things about and she's my tutor. Just my luck. _I quickly turned to see what was on the other side of the room from the teachers desk and spied a red and black Hedgehog wearing a leather jacket with a white top underneath sporting a skull and crossbones t-shirt, and black denim jeans, wearing his usual trainers 'air shoes' he called them, who was grinning at me sitting next to a blue Hedgehog, wearing a white tank top with dark blue denim jeans and his normal sneakers, who was looking out of the window with a rather vacant expression. Sitting on the desk in front of him was a yellow Fox, wearing a black t-shirt with a dragon print and black denim jeans with what looked like steel toe capped boots, who was smiling at me merrily and a red Echidna in a light grey top with the words 'protect and serve' on it and combat print trousers with some odd looking cross between a shoe and a trainer on, who was intensely staring at the ivory Bat next to him, she was wearing a navy hoodie with a print of a ruler saying 'you rock' and a rock saying 'you rule' with some strategically torn navy jeans, and of course sitting in complete obliviousness to the one next to her while listening to the teacher. The desks were set with three seats per desk so I swiftly sat next to the red and black Hedgehog right behind the ivory Bat. He was still grinning at me by the time I sat down.

"I think you're a little late." He muttered under his breath so quietly I barely heard him, yet laughter was almost breaking through his usually even tone. I grimaced at him, resisting the urge to stick my middle finger up in case the tutor saw me.

"I see the whole gang is here." I whispered to him, eyes on the teacher in case she looked our way. The red and black Hedgehog I sat next to was my best friend, Shadow. His foster mother Maria made friends with my mother a few years after she moved here which resulted in me and Shadow pretty much being brought up together as brother and sister as I had no blood siblings. As we was a year apart we went through primary school and we fell apart in the later years. I made friends with Rouge, the ivory Bat and then Tails, the yellow fox, whereas Shadow made friends with Knuckles, the red Echidna who introduced him to the blue Hedgehog, Sonic. Sonic and Shadow became rivals the first day at play time the second they realised they could both outrun anyone else, even the adults, allowing them to culminate and develop their natural gift. When me and Rouge caught up to Sonic and Shadow in secondary school we met up again and introduced each other to our new friends. After that the 'gang' was virtually inseparable from school to night and only did our after school clubs stop us from meeting up every Thursday. I still met up with Shadow however as much to my glee when I started the kendo club, soon after joining secondary school, as Shadow had joined half a year before! I was unsure as to the normal rules but the kendo club that we was situated with nearby didn't allow those under twelve to join.

"Yeah, you should have told me what room you were in for tutorial at kendo practice, I could have told you!" He mumbled back, talking in such a way that I couldn't even see his lips moving, before looking down to make himself look like he was taking the occasional note. You might think it was bad for us to be talking over the teacher, but we was both getting the general gist of what she was going on about, it was all attendance and punctuality. We'd listen when she got to the stuff we actually cared about.

"I just didn't think... Shh, she's handing out time tables." I muttered to him before sitting up straight and pretending I paid attention the whole way through what she was saying. Shouting was suddenly heard from outside the window and the teacher swiftly shut it.

"No consideration for learning premises these days." She mumbled to herself loud enough for all the students to hear, as if it was a warning. Some of the kids fidgeted under her sweeping gaze of the class before she continued to hand out the time tables. She handed Shadow his and then looked at me before turning around and sitting back behind her desk, the class burst into talk about where they were placed while I stared at the teacher. After a few seconds I realised she was trying to be difficult.

"Erm, Mrs Turner? You sort have forgotten mine." I announced in a loud voice to her. She peeked up again and shuffled over. The class once again went silent but I could hear Shadow sniggering under his breath.

"Yes well, you see, you wasn't here for the register, so I don't know who you are." She told me calmly, I looked into her hand and saw that she only hand one time table left.

"Well since that's the last one left I'd say that one's mine... Miss." I added at the end, trying not to sound impolite at the same time as putting my frustration across subtly. She scowled at me and handed me the last time table.

"I sure hope that you're on time from now on, else disciplinary action will be taken." Mrs Turner stated before wandering off to her desk once again. The class once again burst into talking, except this time there was the occasional point at me. This time Shadow actually laughed at me.

"Well I think you told her!" He continued to laugh. I scowled at him until he stopped. "Hey guess what? I found out why me and Sonic share our natural running ability." I looked at him, likely with bewilderment on my face. Sonic, who had overheard, turned around with a similar look.

"You did?" Sonic stated. Shadow looked proud of himself.

"Yeah, I found out we're related somehow on my mother's side. Still haven't been able to find any leads on my birth father however." Shadow told the two of us. Shadow looked disheartened.

"Hey dude, don't stress about it. You'll find out eventually." Sonic reassured him as he tossed a crystal clear gem up and down. I glance over to the gem and my mouth dropped open. It was massive.

"Sonic where on Mobius did you find that!?" I exclaimed. Sonic caught it expertly and quickly put it in his jacket before anyone saw it.

"Ames, shh. I don't want people to see it." Sonic hushed as some heads turned to see what we was talking about, as I rolled my eyes at him as it was more than likely he wanted to show it off, Knuckles had also finally rejoined reality and turned to look.

"Sonic? Is that what I thought it was?" Knuckles asked surprisingly calmly, looking quite surprised.

"Probably, after all I heard about them from you." Sonic stated as he smirked, rubbing his finger under his nose. I looked between the two quite frustrated.

"Could someone please tell me what's going on?" I half shouted, some of the heads that had turned away again looked back in a glance to be met with Shadow's icy daggers which I could see out the corner of my eye. Much to my surprise, and to the other two by the looks on their faces, Rouge turned round and answered.

"It's a Chaos Emerald, you know the ones of legend and all that." Rouge stated to me. Knuckles went back to ogling at her from the side and Sonic's eyes narrowed.

"How do you know what it is?" Sonic asked suspiciously. Rouge shrugged as she smirked at me.

"I like shiny things." She stated simply as she smiled. Sonic smirked at her.

"I swear you should have been born a Magpie." Sonic commented. Rouge shrugged but smirked at the comment before changing the subject.

"So Amy, what you got?" Rouge turned and asked me. I glanced at my time table.

"Maths first thing, then English, and then PE theory. What you got Rouge?" I asked her pleasantly. Out the corner of my eye I could see a smirk growing on Shadow's face, which didn't exactly inspire me with confidence.

"I've got a free then English then another free! Hopefully we'll be in the same English group!" Rouge stated as Sonic interrupted.

"Hey me too Rouge, did you take English PE and drama?" Sonic asked Rouge, she nodded. "Wicked! Knux took the same as us too..." He paused so Knuckles could reply, but Knuckles was away again. "Didn't you Knucklehead?" Sonic teased, everyone turned to look at Knuckles, and Knuckles tore his eyes off Rouge a split second before she looked at him.

"Wha'?" He asked dazedly, Sonic grinned at him.

"Same subjects as me right?" Sonic asked again. Knuckles nodded before turning to Rouge and, seeing her looking at him, turned away again with a very subtle blush under his already red fur. "Same times as us then dude?" Sonic asked. Knuckles nodded as he stared outside the window with a semi vacant expression on his face as if he was looking at something very far away. Sonic shook his head and turned back to Rouge, she was completely oblivious to Knuckles affections, and Knuckles wouldn't let us tell her. "Want to hang out first period? Us three?" Sonic asked.

"Sure, sounds cool." Rouge replied. Something seemed odd about this, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"Wait a sec, you and Sonic are a year older than us. What gives?" I asked Shadow, the two hedgehogs looked at each other and shrugged in sync.

"We both got held back a year because we took our rivalry too seriously. Don't you remember me telling you a couple years ago? It was how we ended up as friends, or 'the two menaces' as the teachers called us. They shouldn't have forced us to get along!" Shadow chuckled. I rolled my eyes at myself, of course I remembered now! They didn't get held back for bad grades but for bad behaviour. Suddenly the bell rang. "Shall I walk you to the Maths block?" Shadow asked. I looked at him in disbelief.

"It's on the fourth floor! Why would you... Oh." I caught on to the cheesy grin at last, his time table was identical to mine.

"Laters!" Sonic bade to the both of us. Rouge gave me an apologetic look, as much as I were friends with Shadow he could be so annoying. Rouge told me it was because he had a crush on me, but I don't believe her. He's like it with all his mates except Rouge. A complete wind up merchant. _Maybe he fancies Rouge? _No wait, he only has me and Rouge as female friends. How am I to know what he'd act like to other girls? Tails quickly stood up and caught up with us just as we got to the door. Tails was and is by far the quietest of our group, but he is also the smartest by far, which is a lot coming from a group of A to A* students (Except Knuckles), if he was walking with us it was certainly because he had maths too so I wouldn't be all that surprised if he was in the same room. Though with his knowledge he should have been past university already, maybe even with the lead scientist way up there. He probably would have tried it it wasn't for his friends, Shadow, Sonic and me, he was still a year younger than me though and that put him at two years younger than Sonic and Shadow. I was pretty sure he looked up to the two as older brothers being an only child. His parents were told they couldn't have children but they defied the odds and did anyway, even if it did have a consequence, his lucky tail as we called it. His brains allowed him to catch up to our year's and there he contently sat even though he was offered to be put up again, many times.

"Going with us Tails?" Shadow asked the small yellow Fox. Tails nodded in response and I smiled at him.

"Us three can sit together on a desk, it'll be perfect! What have you got after lunch Tails?" I asked him pleasantly, trying to get the shy guy to talk to us.

"English, then a free." Tails replied in a quiet voice, I didn't expect him to have took PE but it made me happy to know that the gang would be together for one lesson at the very least, otherwise we'd only be seeing each other on the Monday mornings at form.

"What else are you taking Tails?" I asked politely as we reached the stairs and start climbing.

"Physics and chemistry." Tails muttered. Shadow stopped in his tracks.

"You're taking four subjects?!" Shadow exclaimed. I grabbed the fool by the shoulder of his leather jacket and dragged him up the stairs.

"Shadow you can't just stop in the middle on the stairs!" I half growled half shouted at him. "There are people behind us!" I growled under my breath. Shadow half smirked at me... _The damn moron _knew _that would annoy me. _I heard mutterings behind us as the group that Shadow held up turned off on to the third floor. One of the voices sounded familiar so I quickly turned to see who it was, my worst presumptions were confirmed immediately as I saw those blue eyes glaring at me venomously. It was Scourge and his gang. We would not hear the end of this very soon. Scourge and his gang were the only people who continuously bullied people through secondary school, never growing up and always picking fights.

"Yo! Rose! Wait up!" I suddenly heard from just below the stairs. Shadow glanced over the edge and rolled his eyes. I didn't have to look. Only two people called me that and one of them was standing right next to me.

"Hey Slayde. What are you doing in college?" I asked him as I turned to find he had somehow wormed his way through three crowds, including Scourge's gang to catch us up. "You're a year older than Shadow and you, unlike some, managed to get through school without being held back, so why the third year in college?" I questioned, suspicious.

"What? Shads hasn't told you?" Slayde asked looking at his younger brother. Shadow grumbled something about 'not caring enough to mention it' and Slayde smirked, despite the fact he couldn't have possibly heard it over the crowd as I barely heard it and they were on opposite sides of me. "I completed four subjects last year as you know, advanced Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Maths-"

"Nerd." Shadow interjected, but Slayde continued as if he was uninterrupted.

"So instead of passing up the chance of a year of free learning I'm doing two subjects, both AS and A2 in one year." He commented. Looking proud of himself. Shadow started grumbling again, but I didn't catch it this time. Though Slayde smirked again.

"That's cool Slayde. You really are a nerd though." I told him as I winked. "What are you doing?" I asked, amused at Shadow's mixture of jealousy and typical brotherly annoyance.

"I'm doing PE and English. Some PE theory should a doddle with me already having done advanced biology." Slayde stated as we continued up the stairs.

"What is 'Advanced' in the advanced biology all about? You could take just advanced without normal if you wanted when I checked and it just surprised me." I commented, Slayde smirked at me and then looked at his watch briefly.

"Well normal biology deals with ferals and plants. Advanced however deals with Mobians and humans." Slayde replied. Grinning at me I think, or maybe Shadow, I wasn't sure who.

"So when are your lessons Slayde?" I asked as we reached to top floor, the floor we was heading too and entered the doors to the corridor.

"I have a free then English AS, then I have PE theory on AS-"

"Fuck no!" Shadow shouted as he stopped in the middle of the hallways and glared at his brother, making me giggle at them both. "You are not in our fucking class I refuse to believe it. Especially PE!"

"You want me to tell mum how much you're swearing at me because I swear I'll take this recording to her." Slayde stated as he pulled his phone out that was recording the conversation. I gasped but then realised he was just doing it to wind up Shadow, and it seemed to be working.

"Gimme that phone." Shadow shouted as he made a lunge for it, Slayde jumped backwards to avoid and went right into an open door, Shadow dashed in after him and I heard scuffling, screams, paper flying everywhere and then shouting as whichever teacher that was in there lost his rag. I glanced at the number on the door, then to the number on my time table. _Oh shit. _I walked in to find Shadow glaring at a male blue Echidna, that I assumed was the teacher, with his ears flattened and his brother grinning his face off. The teacher seemed to know Slayde and because of that all the blame was getting pinned on Shadow. I rolled my eyes at the pair and ushered Tails over as he was still standing in the doorway. I sat down at the desk I could find furthest at the back of the room that was still free and sat in the middle, him on my left. The teacher excused Slayde and he quickly came over to me

"See you in 304 for English." He muttered to me before quickly leaving the room. After another minute the teacher finally told Shadow to sit down and he stomped over before sitting down heavily to the right of me with his arms crossed and a scowl on his brow, a bond of loath already formed in his eyes. I recounted how few people he actually got on with before my attention was turned by the teacher speaking. Slayde was the outgoing one out of the two brothers.

"I'm Mr Samuel Johnson. You may call me by either my first or second name, or even my full name if you wish as you will find most teachers in the college agree on. Now this term we'll be covering..."

The rest of Maths passed without incidence, I could go into it... But it would likely bore you!

"God I am glad to be out of that classroom!" Shadow exclaimed as we headed towards the stairs for the floor directly below, the third floor, Tails was following behind, quite as usual.

"Well you should try and get on with the teacher. I know you got off to a bad start but you should try it, it'll make college life easier." I scolded. I doubted he would listen to me but it was worth a shot because I didn't want him getting too stressed or I'd have to be his friend dealing with it.

*Hmpf* "Maybe. Depends on what he's like tomorrow. Come on. We have my god damn brother to see." Shadow stated begrudgingly. I crossed my arms and glared at him.

"You should try and get on with him too! What'd he do that's so bad?" I asked. Expecting a completely petty and inadequate answer. I wasn't disappointed.

"Been himself. He is the most annoying person in the world!" Shadow announced almost dramatically.

"I doubt that Shadow. I don't have anyone." I told him awkwardly. Shadow shifted uncomfortably and then made an obvious change of subject, I wasn't complaining.

"I hope I get off the a better start with the English teacher. At least I know I'll get on with the gym teacher, as you know. It's Sonic's mum." Shadow commented, smirking at the fact that Sonic had to take a class with his mother teaching, what he didn't think of was that the same woman was likely his own auntie or some similar relation from what he'd found out. If they were true of course.

"Haha, yeah. That should be fun." I commented. Wondering if Sonic had got in touch with her to tell her about his long lost cousin whatever removed or added. Our discussion took us all the way outside the door that we needed to be inside and much to my surprise people were already inside waiting. It seemed like us three were the last ones to arrive. Rouge was sitting at the back of the classroom on the left hand side, sitting on the left hand side of the desk with Knuckles next to her in the middle seat, gazing at her. Sonic sat next to Knuckles and gave a small wave before turning back to Slayde who was sitting on the desk in front of them on the left hand side. Slayde Rouge and Sonic all seemed to be locked in some kind of intense conversation. There was a desk with a chair directly to the right of Sonic that was by itself with no one else on that table. Tails made his way to automatically and instantly took up a conversation with Sonic. I went and sat next to Slayde and Shadow followed me to the table sitting on the other side. Awkwardness was in the air a slight bit from the both of them, it only showed on Shadow's face however. Slayde decided to turn to me.

"Rose! Fancy meeting you here! It's been ages." Slayde exclaimed with a grin. I smirked back myself and decided to play his little game.

"Yup! Got to have been like, a whole hour and a half! Time sure does fly doesn't it?" I half joked back. I saw Shadow as he rolled his eyes out of the corner of mine. Suddenly the teacher walked in, causing almost complete silence amongst the class. In seconds the class was completely silent so she could talk. She was a surprisingly young teacher likely in her mid to late twenties. She was a black Hedgehog with purple stripes running down her quills in a similar way to Shadow's at top except her lower quills came down to her waist underneath as if she had tamed as much as possible, but some of them just wouldn't behave (I knew the feeling). The Hedgehog had dark amethyst purple eyes that seemed to span infinite depths with a certain hidden intelligence behind them. One I hadn't come across before. She had two helix piercings near the top of her right ear and a scaffold in the top of her left. She wore a simple black tank top with a black cardigan on her arms and shoulder, fully unbuttoned. Lastly she wore some very dark black jeans that could have easily passed for trousers to the untrained eye. In short she had the body every woman in their right mind was after.

"I'm miss Alexia Rose. You can address me how you wish as long as it isn't insulting." Alexia stated eyes sweeping across the room at the various students in there with her piercing eyes. "Are there any questions before I discuss the terms syllabus?" Alexia asked with the air of authority a seasoned teacher of fifty might have rather than a 26-28 year old. She pointed towards someone at the back of the classroom on the other side. I cricked my neck trying to turn fast enough to see had the gall to actually ask a question, but the voice hit me first.

"Can I call you sexy sweet cheeks?" Scourge asked with a grin I caught as I finished turning, my face was a picture of horror and shock for multiple reasons. I turned back to Alexia, my eyes widened in horror at the way he has just spoken to a teacher. I was surprised to see that Alexia was still smiling.

"You can. If you wish. If you and your little friends want to all get in immediate detention anyway." She replied. The laughter coming from his grouped stopped almost instantly. Some of them just stared at her in shock and horror because of the way she had just addressed their Shepard. She left a cold hard look on Scourge that obviously wasn't a glare but made you feel just the way a really chilling one does. "Anything else anyone?" She asked politely as her perfect smiled reappeared. Eyes not leaving Scourge until after she had pointed at our table. I immediately panicked thinking she was pointing at me until Slayde's voice came across and disrupted my panic with the quietest, smoothest, most thoughtful tone I had heard him pull off.

"May I call you Lexi?" Slayde asked looking right into her eyes with something I didn't understand fully. Maybe understanding? I heard Shadow snigger to the side of me and I elbowed him in the ribs.

"Normally no. But I think I may make an exception to an interesting nineteen year old." Alexia replied. Smiling properly now. I looked over to Scourge to see him eyeing Slayde down, Slayde completely oblivious, not that he would have cared anyway actually if anything he would have made Scourge back down, Slayde hadn't been made to deal with him much being two years above him. Scourge was going to be a real pain this year I could just see it. "Well if there's no more questions then I'll get on with what we're doing this term..."

After she was done with what she said that she wanted to set us on an assignment right away, we had to write a fictional piece so that she could assess our current learning as she didn't fully trust grades and everyone learnt differently and handed out five sheets of paper to everyone. About three quarters of an hour into class Alexia left the room. Shadow quickly turned from his doodle on his first page near the small paragraph he had wrote in the first five minutes before getting bored.

"Big bro's got a crush on someone." He teased. "Took you long enough to find someone, shame it's a teacher." I turned to him and looked at Slayde.

"Seriously? You have a crush on Alexia?" I asked after eavesdropping on Shadow. Slayde glared at his brother for the first time I could remember.

"No she just intrigues me. Could you two spare some pages?" Slayde replied trying to sound casual. I handed him two pages and Shadow handed him three, but the change of subject did not deter me, I could detect his tone, I was excellent at spotting when people had feelings for each other when I was paying attention, in fact, it was more than just spotting. I was about to voice this opinion when Alexia came back in the room so I quickly got back on with the work she had given us because she didn't seem to care much for GCSE results.

"You so do." Shadow muttered before actually starting on his writing project. Our fictional piece could be about anything we wanted and as long or short as we wanted. I rolled my eyes when I saw the word 'zombies' on Shadow's page, I glanced over to Slayde paper and saw that he had already filled out all five of his pages, double sided. I caught a glimpse of the title, it looked like 'A summers night dream.' And rolled my eyes. He was totally taking a liking towards her, but one that seemed far beyond a simple physical crush. All of a sudden I realised that the tension and awkwardness that I always usually felt around the two brothers had vanished, completely. This confused me, I had felt it around them as far as I could remember in detail. Which was about midway through secondary school, year nine to be precise, due to the three years age gap between our youngest member of the group and him, he didn't spend too much time with us. This is, until his last year, when all of us ended up in year nine but him. I remember the amount of tension that flew between them like it was a physical thing in the air, and yet, it had completely vanished. Completely disappeared as if it was never there to begin with... My mind started wandering to all those good times in year nine when suddenly a voice cut across me.

"Right guys and gals you have ten minutes left. Use them wisely." She announced as she glanced over the book she was reading. The half of the class that were sitting around doing nothing suddenly moved to their papers, the look in her eyes practically forcing them down on their papers, there was a strange feeling coming of her and most the class I just couldn't place. The only people in the class who didn't move to start writing even more furiously or bend down to look over what they had already wrote for mistakes was no other than Scourge's gang. I rolled my eyes. I hadn't seen them write a single word during the hour and a quarter that we had been given and I personally regretted daydreaming about twenty minutes of it away. I swiftly moved onto working on my story making myself a new personal best of words per minute, I kept glancing up at the clock as I worked and with just thirty seconds to spare I finished it. It was an action story about the gang fighting an evil genius bent on ruling the world and we saved it without fail. I felt an odd sense of nostalgia as I quickly reread as much as I could In the small amount of time I had left.

"Okay! Pens down please." Alexia announced, I quickly glanced around to see those two people that always seemed to need to write those few extra words and grinned as Shadow was one of them. I looked to my left to see Slayde with a ten paged essay, or should I say 19 and a half sided essay, looking pleased with himself as he wrote his name at the top of each piece of paper. Alexia stood up with a stapler and Slayde immediately glared at the names he had just wrote on each piece of paper as if they put themselves there as he furiously scribbled out all of them except the one on the first page.

"You should have waited." I whispered to him playfully, he looked amused in his eyes but he did not smirk.

"I guess stupid things happen to everyone." He admitted as he shrugged. Alexia came up to our table and held her hand out towards Slayde. Surprise lit her face as he handed her back all of the ten sheets he wrote on. She quickly checked both sides of the sheets, looking at how small Slayde's writing was before glancing over to mine and Shadow's piles. She blinked twice before stapling it and muttering something under her breath that was too quiet for anyone to have possibly heard. I felt the confusion coming off Shadow and instantly realised his strangely sensitive ears must have picked it up. I vowed I would ask him in a second. She moved over to my papers and I handed her the three sheets I had done, one of them with only half of one side done. _Damn my wandering mind. _ I thought. Shadow handed the two sheets he had done in the half hour that he hadn't been doodling and started doodling on the table as soon as she had moved to Rouge on the table behind us. I waited until Alexia was out of earshot then whispered to Shadow.

"What was it she mumbled?" I asked in nothing but a mumble myself, wholly curious as to what could have possibly baffled Shadow so easily.

"She said 'no matter how old I get I always seem to end up getting surprised.' Which is just an odd thing for someone who's barely older than us to say, especially as she is likely just out of university this year or last." Shadow stated, sounding baffled. It confused me slightly, but not to the extent that it did Shadow. Everyone measured time differently, he just measured it like he was a fifty year old. It took her several minutes to finished collecting all the papers and by the time she was done there were five minutes of the lesson left.

"Off you go to lunch. See you all tomorrow." Alexia announced as she made her way to her desk with the stack of papers that she had in her hand. Half of the class rushed out as if they had not seen daylight for years. A quarter of them walked out slowly but stiffly, still feeling the strange influence Alexia seemed to have over people. Scourge's group was amongst those except Scourge himself, who left just before them, a scowl upon his brow. Leaving just our group and two other students who didn't seem as heavily affected. I turned to see Sonic standing with a small amount of confusion. He was obviously feeling the effect she was giving off but on a much lower scale, like me. It seemed Shadow and Slayde were the only one's to completely unaffected. Sonic, Rouge Tails and Knuckles all started to leave.

"We all have a free so we're all going to set off home." Sonic explained as everyone left the room, now it was down to just Shadow Slayde and I.

"Want to hang out during lunch?" Slayde asked the both of us. I was about to open my mouth to reply, considering denying for Shadow's sake, but Shadow beat me to the punch.

"Yeah, sure thing. Rose, you coming too?" Shadow replied, taking me by surprise that he had accepted and then as he asked me.

"Erm, yeah sure. If you don't mind." I replied, trying to work out what exactly had changed between the two of them during the lesson. The only thing that _had _happened was that Slayde suddenly started liking someone, and that wouldn't change anything because Shadow didn't like anyone so jealousy or rivalry for a girl was out the picture, unless... Maybe he did and never told me? But I'd know because of my strange ability! Gah! I'm confused! _I'll just have to try and work it out myself. _I thought, concentrating on any clues I could think of, but Shadow didn't spend any time with any girls what so ever. If it wasn't for the fact he had told me otherwise I'd have thought he was gay. Out of his house he only ever spends time with Sonic, and me. _Oh... No wait. That's stupid. Shadow said himself that he doesn't see me in that way to Sonic once when they didn't know I was there and I didn't detect a hint of a lie in his emotions._

_*Diary insert*_

_Oh yeah! I guess I forgot to mention the fact that I have a strange gift! I can sense the emotions of those around me, it's pretty neat. I can't sense the really deep ones that are abstract but the ones that swim around on the surface! It comes in pretty damn useful believe me, anyway, back to the story!_

_*End insert*_

Suddenly I realised what it was that I had been feeling from most of the teenagers around me. It had been fear, just not the kind I was used to. It wasn't the kind of fear I felt when someone was afraid of an animal like a spider, or a person like someone in authority, no. It was a subconscious, primal fear that seemed to warn you away. The kind that forewarned you as you approached something like a Chaos Emerald to tell you that you was getting into something that was pretty damn deep, although the feeling on a Chaos Emerald disappeared once you touched it. I realised that Alexia was wearing leather gloves. This tiny fact in such a warm climate of course just set my curiosity into overdrive to know exactly who she was.

Lunch hour, one 'til two, was pretty boring as we, or should I say Shadow, spent almost the entirety of it teasing Slayde about liking our English teacher, pausing only to eat. It seemed to not matter how much he denied it, it was just too obvious.

At the end of lunch we headed to the room, number 205, for PE theory and waited for the teacher at the back of the group that was already there, outside the locked door in the corridor. This was the two hour lesson block that each subject had for various reasons. I don't know whether you know what our college is like, as I don't know how others work, but ours has one two hour lesson and two one and a half hours blocks per lesson. So five hours for each lesson. I looked around at the crowd that was in front of the door to see who I recognised from my old school. To my surprise I could see no one. It seemed that Shadow, Slayde and I were the only ones from out old school in this group, not a single other. Suddenly a female blue Hedgehog with short quills and green eyes, a single, short, bang hung down and obscured her left eye. She was wearing blue tracksuit bottoms with three purple strips on them and a tight blue tank top on. A sport bra evident, to a woman anyway, underneath. She looked more in place with the students than the other teachers but I knew that she was Sonic's mum and the teacher for PE. From what I had heard she had given birth to Sonic quite late in her twenties, her being around forty five now, but her age wasn't evident anywhere on her body as she carried herself and looked like a thirty year old. Half the students relaxed when they saw her, I wasn't sure whether they assumed she was a student or thought she looked like a pushover.

"Hey you two." She indicated to me and Shadow as she walked past. Shadow looked at her awkwardly and Slayde smirked at him. No doubt he knew about his brothers discovery but as he hadn't already gotten to know her he didn't feel as on edge as Shadow did. Suddenly my question to myself about the other students was answered, they assumed she was a mature student. "Are you guys going to stand in the way of the door all day or am I going to get to teach my lesson before the sun sets past the trees?" She barked at those in front of the door. The ones over there quickly shuffled across and gave me a glimpse of green I had missed before. _If Scourges gang is in here I am going to _murder _somebody. _I told myself as we all filed into the room. When I got in I looked around but couldn't find any familiar faces until I noticed that familiar green again. It seemed that Scourge was by himself in this lesson without his comrades in arms to help him. Some of his usual swagger had seemed to have already left him with the simple loss of his crew. Bully's were powerless alone. I smirked and went to sit down next to Shadow, who had decided to sit in the middle of the desk so that he was right next to his older brother. It was odd seeing those two get along at all, let alone so well.

"My name is Mrs Alice Hedgehog. I sure hope that none of you find my last name amusing in any way." Alice announced as she scanned the students under a harsh gaze making them shudder, and there went the ones that thought she was a pushover, now this was a type of fear I recognised, fear of someone in authority. "Now this year we'll be studying hard in the theory as well as the physical half of the course. Now then, firstly, this term we'll be studying..."

The lesson was pretty boring after that, the first half she just explained everything we'd be doing that year and the second half we did a quiz. Swapping and marking it to test our knowledge in the subject of PE theory. It was a long day and I was glad that I had a free first lesson slot the next day because it meant that I could have a nice _long_ lay in. The distance from the college to my house wasn't very long so Shadow, Slayde and I decided to walk home together, discussing what we'd be doing in our lessons in the next few months. Slayde even gave us a few helpful tips on maths as he had covered it the year before last. By the time we arrived to mine it was five so Shadow and Slayde departed straight to their house next door. I went to stand at my door and paused for a few seconds before I'd decide to open it. I knew that right behind the door would be my mum and dad asking how my first day at college went. I took a deep breath and grasped the handle of the door, turning it slowly I opened it. The outcry was immediate.

"Amelia! How was your day? Did you make any new friends? How's that Shadow boy? You talk about him a lot." My mum exclaimed in curiosity. I looked around for dad but couldn't see him. _He must be later than usual from work. _I thought. He worked at one of the few secondary schools in the area, and my mum worked at one of the numerous primary schools in the area.

"It was okay. Met all my new teachers... I do _not _talk about Shadow a lot, only as much as the rest of my friends." I told her in irritation of her constant need for me to fall for Shadow. I didn't see why, her actions were lost on me. But I suppose no one understood their parents. She gave me a stupid 'knowing' look, but I ignored it. "So what's for dinner tonight mum?" I asked merrily, trying to change the subject as I knew that it'd come up at dinner again.

"Your father is picking you up a treat! We're having a Chinese take away!" She stated. I could feel my eyes lighting up.

"Chicken chow mein?" I asked in glee. My mum nodded. "Wooooo!" I shouted as I rushed to the sofa and dived on it. Relaxing for the first time since I left this morning. I switched on the TV and started watching whatever was on, it was some kind of animated comedy show. About ten minutes later I heard the door open. I stood up and went to the door to see my dad coming in with his hands full due to the bags of Chinese food. I went up to him and gave him a hug. "Welcome home dad." I said, happy and content that he was home for a few reasons including the fact he carried my chow mein.

"Hey Amelia, could you lock up for me?" He asked kindly. I released him and let him walk through to the kitchen before I locked the door behind him. I quickly rushed through into the kitchen to see them plating up what my father had bought. I got excited when I saw my chicken chow mein on the plate and immediately swooped down and grabbed it, carrying it off to the dining table, I could feel the involuntary wagging of my tail, but I was too happy to care. I sat down and, excuse the pun, started chowing down on my meal. My parents joined me after a minute or so and the conversation started. "So how was your first day Amelia?" Dad asked. Mum carried on eating but I could tell that she was listening expectantly too. I recounted most of my days events to my father, leaving out anything about romantic feelings and situations, so Slayde's new crush and my theory behind why Shadow stopped being so awkward with his brother, Shadow's mystery love, even if I disbelieved it myself. By the time I was done recounting the day's events everyone was done eating and my mum had even successfully snuck me ice cream during the course of the conversation. I needed to watch my figure! Though it was very hard for a Mobian to get fat in comparison to a human because of our higher than usual metabolism. Sonic being a prime example with the amount of chilli dogs he ate; the guy was obsessed! After dinner I told them I was off to Shadow's and they gave me the thumbs up. I stepped outside to find it was already dark! I hadn't realised just how early it was that it got dark as I'd been spending a lot of time inside recently. I got round to the house next door and knocked, Maria answered the door a few minutes later. Maria was a female human somewhere in her late fifties who had decided to adopt the two, Shadow and Slayde, in her late thirties. Unlike most humans she had grown old quite gracefully and still had her blonde hair and kindly blue eyes, looking at least 15 years younger than she was. Very few wrinkles adorned her face as she looked more like a just-turned-forty year old than an almost sixty year old one. I imagine that most human females hoped for that.

"Hello Amy, are you here to see Shadow?" She asked me. I smiled at her happily, I hadn't seen her for quite a while.

"Yes please Maria, are you doing well?" I responded. The kind woman smiled at me with one of her best smiles before replying.

"Yes, I'm proud of Shadow for getting through his first day without causing too much chaos, and I'm glad that Slayde has finally started liking women, even if she is a little out of reach right now. Who knows what a few years will bring though?" She replied merrily. "Shadow is on his game station playing that shooting game with the zombies. I think that Slayde is on it with him over the internet but I'm not completely sure. Come on in." She beckoned as I walked into her house. Not much had changed over the years but the fact that she had a new television in the downstairs living room. I headed right upstairs to Shadow, finding him on the game in question with a stereo surround sound headphone headset on playing on what I assumed was some kind of new map pack for the game. I stood and watched for a little while until he started shouting at Slayde down the microphone for telling him what to do. I started giggling at Shadow and he finally turned around and realised that I was there. His mouth dropped open as I waved sarcastically and pointed at the game causing him to immediately turn around again.

"Argh shit. I'm down. Rose came in my room and distracted me." Shadow stated down the microphone. "No it's not just an excuse he snapped, pausing again to the answer. "No I do _not _and shut it Slayde." I could hear laughter coming from the room next to us and assumed its origins. "Hey Amy, we're doing this Easter Egg. Do you mind watching?" His question took my off guard and surprised me, but I supposed it wouldn't be too bad. Maybe I could learn something about it. Guys always went on about how good video games were so they surely couldn't be all that bad could they?

"Erm sure Shadow. But could you turn the volume up on the TV so that I can hear what's going on?" I asked him, he looked confused for a second then realised why I couldn't hear and what was going on. He laughed awkwardly and quickly turned the volume up on the TV so that I could hear it. After watching him for a while I could see why guys were so obsessed with the things, but not so much that I myself would go out my way to play it. "Hey Shadow? Think you could try and teach me how to play this sometime?" I asked. It would be something to do during those tedious hours of studying, and who knew? Maybe I'd grow to like it a fair bit, zombies were so unrealistic after all.

"Erm. Sure Rose." Shadow replied, sounding rather baffled about the strange fact that a 'girl' wanted to play video games. I heard a Slayde's unintelligible voice through the wall following with laughter coming from the other room again and I rolled my eyes. I heard Slayde talk again but couldn't quite catch the words. "Would you shut up Slayde, you're such a pain!"

"What's Slayde laughing about?" I asked. I heard the laughter from the other room increase in volume, _great_, I thought _it was about me_. "Does he ever _stop_ laughing?" I added as the constant laughter was starting to get on _my_ nerves now.

"Nope, he's pretty much like that all the time at home." Shadow replied, blatantly avoiding the other question. He chucked me a controller, which I barely caught without the warning, and indicated a television just to the left of me. "I did some... Well nerdy stuff to split the audio and video of the split screens so that it relays it on separate screens. Don't ask me how I did it, I did it ages ago when we only had one of these things so me and Slayde could play on it at the same time without compromising the surround sound and screen size. Here is your headset. I managed to make it split mic too, so you'll hear us all through the surround sound headphones. Erm. I'll try and teach you as we go along. The others will throw in tips as they know you've never played before, er. Have you ever played any gun games" I shook my head. "Well the controls are this to shoot, this to stab, this to sprint, grenades, aiming down sights, jumping, crouching and going to prone, changing guns and reloading. If you need to recap just ask and I'll tell you." Shadow turned back to his screen and started the game. The game was rather odd, the zombies just dashed at you and you had to try and kill them before they killed you. Half the time the people I was playing with were going on about 'crawlers' which was a zombie that had its legs blown off, usually by a grenade, so the team could explore the map and get guns etc. So as you can imagine it was rather confusing for me the first time as people went on about "Maxies" and "perks" but after a few games I started to improve. Shadow suggested us doing the easter egg, which took AGES I kid you not, but after we got all 8 perks permanently it was worth it, apparently. It made my game playing a heck of a lot easier. Point collecting started and by the end of it I was surprised to find I was third and not last.

"Wow, you learn quite quick Rose." Shadow complimented. I felt proud of myself. Suddenly Maria was shouting up the stairs.

"Shadow, Slayde, turn to the local news network!" Shadow immediately stood up and changed the channel as we was out of a game, or match if you like, as it had just finished.

"... And as you heard from the forensic expert earlier this was a rather violent murder that was conducted with teeth and claws. The likeliest possibility that the police have come up with is that it was likely caused by a Mobian with rabies. However, until the culprit is found, Sunkiss village will be completely closed to any and all traffic. The poor victim was Susan Willbeck, a green Swallow at the age of twenty two who will be missed and remembered dearly by her family. If you have any news on anyone you see with any of the symptoms of- hold on a second. News just in from the police conducting the search for viral and DNA information from the wounds. No traces of rabies has been found on the victim. This could only mean that this was done by a Mobian fully conscious of him or herself. If you have any information what so ever, or if you feel guilty for this murder, please. Please call the police before anyone else is murdered." The reporter ended, the news went on to something about visitors to the town.

"Holy shit!" Slayde shouted as he burst through the door scaring the life out of me. "Finally something interesting has happened to the town!" He stated excitedly, I looked at him shocked.

"Do you have no consideration for the poor woman's relatives?" I asked him in irritation.

"A tiny bit..." He started, but quickly changed the subject. "Maybe it's a zombie virus!" Slayde announced in reply. I rolled my eyes.

"Slayde, zombies are so unrealistic. It's probably some sick fuck who's pretending to be a vampire." I replied to him. He shrugged at me.

"Maybe it _is_ a vampire! Who knows? I guess they'll catch him and it'll be the end of it though. It happened in the village with the only road that has access to the free way nearby. So there won't be many visitors leaving or coming in any time soon! Anyway Rose, see you tomorrow." Slayde replied as he left the room. I looked at Shadow disgruntled.

"You should probably get home to your parents, if they saw that broadcast they'll be worrying like hell! Or at least, your mum will be." Shadow told me. I nodded my head and stood up.

"Thanks for teaching me how to play Shadow. I'll come round again some time. Just to warn you, my mum might ask you to go to college with me because of this event." I warned him before leaving the room with him. "Even though she knows full well I can take care of myself." I looked around for my shoes near the front door and then blushed as I realised I had forgotten to take them off earlier, I felt bad for a second until I noticed Shadow still had his on too.

"I'll walk you back to make sure your mum doesn't have a heart attack." Shadow commented casually as I made it to the front door.

"Oh are you leaving already dear?" Came across Maria's voice from the living room. I honestly wondered what she did in the house, I had a feeling there was far more to her than met the eye and she just acted old on purpose. I wouldn't doubt that it was Maria that did that audio visual thingy for Shadow and Slayde on their game.

"Yes Maria, thanks for letting me round 'til so late." I replied politely.

"It's no problem dear, you're not a trouble maker or anything." She replied. "Also Shadow needs to company. Spends too much time on that thing of his." She added as Shadow nudged me through the door. It was pitch black outside now, I didn't realise how long I had been inside Shadow's house at all. It surprised me. Shadow quite quickly walked me round, eager to get back to his game no doubt. Mum opened the door and instantly looked pleased by the fact that Shadow was with me.

"Thanks for bringing her home Shadow." My mum gratefully thanked. I rolled my eyes, I would obviously get attacked moving one door down.

"That's fine Mrs Rose, it was my pleasure." He replied as he started walking back to his house. In seconds he was through the door and so was I. The second the door closed her worries started.

"Amelia, I was so worried! There's a murderer on the loose!" My mum exclaimed all panicky.

"Mum I was next door." I could feel myself sweat dropping.

"It doesn't matter! You'll be walking to college with Shadow from now on." _Predictable much? _I thought. Not wanting to listen to my mum getting over protective and over bearing about a killer who was miles away, trapped in a little village with no way out except possibly to the outside world, which the populous wouldn't really care about to say the least. I decided to head straight to my room. It was eleven anyway and I was pretty tired from my day at college. I quickly changed in my PJ's and fell straight into a dreamless sleep.


	3. The First Day Of The End

_Chapter Two: The First Day Of The End_

I awoke to light in my eyes, which confused me due to the face that it should still be dark. _Crap, mus have slept through my alarm again. _I sighed and was just about to get up before I realised that I was meant to be having a lay in today as I didn't have anything until second period. I opened one eye sleepishly and spotted a mass of black and red sitting on the bottom of my bed. My eyes quickly snapped open and I realised it was Shadow, pulling up the quilt to cover whatever modesty I had left, I caused him to slip off the bed and fall flat onto the floor.

"Ouch, that hurt." Shadow stated as he stood up slowly, rubbing the side of his head.

"Well what the hell are you doing in my room you pervert?!" I shouted at him, confused and irritated by the situation.

"Your mum called me this morning and asked me to walk you to college. She let me in before she left."He answered casually. I glanced at the clock, ten. Mum had left two hours ago.

"Have you been there this whole time?" I asked suspectingly. Shadow seemed to shy away a little but still answered the question, maybe it was the look of fury on my face, mum would have a lot to answer for when she got back.

"Erm, no? I was watching TV, thought it was about time you got up so I thought I'd come wake you." Shadow replied, looking completely calm and cool as if it was completely normal to wake someone like that.

"Well, er, yeah. Can you get out so I can get my stuff together? I only have an hour to both get ready and get to college." I told him. He left my room and went downstairs, as soon as he was at the bottom step, which I knew creaked something rotten, I jumped out of my bed and quickly gathered everything I needed before heading to the bathroom to have a nice quick shower. Sure to make sure that my fur was properly cleansed as well as my quills I got a fair dollop in my hand, giving me plenty of suds so I would be sure I was squeaky clean. Ten minutes later I was out and heading down the stairs. "That damn Hedgehog, sitting at the end of my bed and scaring me into next week like that! Why can't he have a normal method of waking people?" I chuntered under my breath. I heard laughter coming from the other room and blushed. I had forgotten about Shadow's far more sensitive than normal hearing. I walked into the living room and much to my relief Shadow was watching a comedy programme. Though that didn't necessarily mean anything. I decided to play it casual. "Just grabbing a bite to eat and then I'll be pretty much ready to go." I announced to the black and red Hedgehog, he looked up at me.

"Okay Rose, sure thing." Shadow commented without looking up from his programme. I rolled my eyes at the back of his head and went straight through to the kitchen, going in various cupboards and finally the fridge in order to have some cereal with milk. I sat down next to Shadow on the sofa and started munching down on my chocolaty cereal. Shadow laughed occasionally at the programme as I ate, I found some of the things he was laughing at funny, but some of them just seemed like they were meant for people much older than us and didn't really amuse me, though they seemed to Shadow, probably an influence of having someone a fair bit older than you as a foster mother.

"I've finished Shadow, just let me do a couple things and we can go." I told him before shooting off to the kitchen before he could reply. I put my bowl in the sink and then quickly went the long way round to the stairs so that I didn't have to walk past Shadow again, lest he mention what I said while walking down the stairs. I made it up and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth before going in my room and grabbing my college bag that had all the stuff a healthy student doing a variety of things needed. I also had a second bag that had a couple of things to change into for PE for better movement. I rushed back down the stairs to find Shadow standing at the door with his own bag, it considerably larger than mine. "I'm ready when you are Shadow." I announced. Shadow opened the door and I followed out, making sure to lock the door behind me so that I knew that no one would be able to break in. Not very easily anyway.

"It's half past Rose, so we'll have to walk at quite a brisk pace." Shadow commented as he checked his watch, he set the pace and I could hardly keep up while walking, I had to occasionally break into a little jog to keep up. I was sure he was doing it on purpose, and that he was enjoying seeing me jog like that. Damn irritating Hedgehog. I'd have to ask him how he walked so fast later so that I could keep up easier, I mean his, legs were only a couple of inches longer than mine as he was only four inches taller than me. He was very tall for a Mobian as I was tall for a Mobian woman. An onset of a growth spurt that came on in the last year, we were the same height not too long ago. I would not admit defeat. To my surprise, the longer I was walking with him the easier it seemed to get to keep up with him. My energy reserves were already pretty high due to my love for running, that was admittedly not as great as Sonic's or Shadow's, but certainly was a love none the less. It took us a mere twenty minutes walking at that pace to cover the distance that had took us an hour just yesterday. "Right. So what do we have first?" Shadow asked. His question took me by surprise, he normally was the one reminding me of things.

"Maths first Shadow. What's up with your memory? Normally it's clear as a bell!" I asked honestly amazed at the lack of Shadow's photographic memory.

"Sorry Rose, I just have a lot on my mind at the moment." Shadow replied to me, clearly not wanting to talk about it.

"Well if you need anyone to talk to you know right where I am." I offered happily, Shadow was my friend, even if he was annoying. I cared about him.

"Thanks Rose." He replied, giving me one of his genuine smiles rather than one of his usual smirks. It was a beautiful thing. I decided to leave the conversation there as we headed to maths. I had spent a great deal of yesterday with him, and I didn't know whether that would mean he'd end up bored with me or not. We headed to Maths in silence and once there sat down in silence. The lesson was boring, and I spent my entire time glancing at shadow, wondering what it was he was thinking about. Not to mention hoping that he could trust and confide in me with it. After that, I knew we had English. "Okay Rose, I've decided. I'm going to tell you everything tonight." Shadow muttered to me as we was walking to PE. Suddenly we heard some people shouting behind us. I blocked them out but Shadow turned around and looked irritated. I turned too to see Slayde pushing people out the way to get to us. I rolled my eyes. That guy was a nut case. As soon as he caught up with us he muttered to Shadow.

"I need to speak with you." In a voice that was clearly meant so I couldn't hear it as I could barely hear it before changing his attitude and turning to me. "Hey Rose! How are you doing?" Slayde asked. "You were doing pretty well last night for a first timer to video games!" I paused and looked at him. Something seemed off with him too and I really wanted to know what it was, curiosity killed the cat they say but I don't care.

"I'm okay Slayde, and I guess I'm just a natural at video games." I replied witnessing a feeling between the two of them that was completely different than usual. For one thing the hostility came from the other side, Slayde and not Shadow. I could tell that Slayde was very angry with Shadow, but Shadow didn't seem to be bothered by it what so ever and only held emotions of contentment, which was a rather odd emotion to hold considering the fact of Slayde's hurt and angry demeanour. He seemed particularly angry with him for some reason. I vowed I would ask Shadow about it later when another emotion shifted through Slayde for just a second before disappearing. Betrayal. What would make Slayde feel betrayed? Shadow and Slayde just started up some idle chit chat. I think they don't always think about the fact I'm very acute to emotions. Though I never told Slayde, Shadow knew. In fact he was the only one who _did_ know. Not even my parents had been informed. The three of us fell silent, or at least I did, the other two were having a conversation that was so quiet I doubted that anyone but them could have heard it. I could catch the occasional word through lip reading, most from Shadow as Slayde seemed to be purposely hiding the movements of his lips. Rose seemed to come up a lot as well as the typical no and yes. The almost muteness took us all the way to the sports hall where Slayde had to leave us.

"Just be careful Shadow." Was what he said as he left. I felt like I'd done something wrong.

"What's up with him?" I asked Shadow. Shadow looked at me doubtfully.

"I'll include that later. Let's just get on with PE." Shadow replied. Shadow didn't talk through the whole of PE and all we was doing was badminton anyway. Though I was paired with him he didn't call out or anything. It looked like a lot was on his mind as he let slip a fair few shuttlecocks, back in secondary school no one could score against him. In fact him and Slayde went for three hours before the teacher was forced to end the session, talk about overrunning an inter school competition. PE seemed to take forever because of that but once it finished it was already one and we had an hour for lunch. Both me and Shadow ate in silence and we didn't both going to find anyone else. We walked to class late because we wasn't paying attention to the time and the complete muteness took us all the way to English and to find that the whole gang was already here, save us two. I couldn't remember Tails being in maths? Maybe he was late because his parents or something. He was telling me about how his mum had fallen ill just last week on the phone. I sat down and turned to Sonic.

"Those two are having issues again." I pointed my thumb over my shoulder at the two standing in the doorway as Slayde had gone up to Shadow as soon as he saw him come in. Sonic shrugged.

"You were expecting it to last?" Sonic questioned, I frowned. I was hoping it would, even if I wasn't expecting it to. I looked over to them and realised that they weren't hushing their voices like they were earlier.

"You know, if you don't like it that much then why don't you just go home or something. I'm talking to her whether you like it or not." Shadow retorted to something to Slayde. Shadow now looked pretty irritated and his inner self reflected it, though it still held it's inner contentment.

"I just might. Mum might be able to put a stop to this foolishness!" Slayde stated back angrily. Shadow put on a cocky look worthy of Sonic.

"Mum already told me I could." Shadow retorted before he came and sat down next to me, smiling at me happily. I looked back to Slayde to see him standing in the doorway, mouth opening and closing like a faulty automatic door. He suddenly whipped round as a black furred hand tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mind moving out the door?" Alexia's voice asked amused. Slayde turned around and saw her, stuttered a little and then decided to just go and sit down without another word. Alexia smiled before going up to the board and writing some stuff on it. "Okay, so I was marking all your projects last night and." _Of course! How could I have forgotten?! "_I shall be pulling you out individually to tell you where you lay on the line and what you will be doing this year more precisely. The better you did, the harder assignments you will get, but the better your grade will be by the end. I'll be doing it in alphabetical order. So can Amelia Rose come outside with me please." I swear this was the only college, no only place, that did registers by first name order, but I guess I was grateful, no tedious waiting. Alexia paused after looking at my name, staring at me quite hard for a few seconds before making her way outside of the classroom. Her look intrigued me, it was a kind of look I had neither been given nor seen before.

"Okay Alexia." I replied before standing and following her out the room. She was standing outside waiting in a calm posture. He smiled as I approached.

"You did amazingly, such creativity, such adventure! You've made it into the top band. There are three, well four this year. The top band studies at stuff bordering uni level in the second year and the first year is somewhere in between what most will be studying at second and uni. This is to try and get you into the top university of your choice, if that is what you desire anyway. Do you wish for me to change my decision?" She finished in a question. I mutely shook my head in case she decided to change her mind on a single word of mine. She laughed at me in a carefree way. "I ask this of everyone to make it fair, but it's mostly for the students in the lower groups. If their skills on debating and reasoning are good enough I'll put them in a better group." She commented cheerfully, I could feel my eyes light up in realisation. She was a pretty fair teacher.

"Ah, I see. That's pretty smart." I complemented. She smirked, I wasn't sure what to think of that as I had never seen a teacher smirk before.

"Just because I look like I'm only just out of university doesn't mean I don't know a thing or two." She replied in an amused voice. I smiled back, slightly curious over what she had said, and besides that, the fact that I was finding it hard to get a read on her. It was the same sort of fuzziness I got from old people as their emotions became more stable, and they understood more about themselves and what particular emotions did to them. They always seemed to be able to control them more aptly after that. Alexia however seemed to have mastered the art of self control completely and utterly, more so than anyone I've ever met before and yet she was still so young. Though one thing she said was bothering me."Is there anything else you would like to discuss?" I shook my head. "Could you send in Catherine Slater after you go back in please?" She asked pleasantly. I took the dismissal up and went back in the classroom, quickly calling out the name I had been given before sitting down. I sat pondering until Shadow's voice cut across my thoughts.

"So what did she say?" Shadow asked quite enthusiastically. Slayde was sitting next to him looking at the door, no doubt thinking about how he'll react when it's his turn to go outside into the corridor, alone, with Alexia.

"I've been put in the top group, which is great news! I just hope that you make it in too!" I replied. Shadow stated talking to Sonic about how well they thought each other must have done and left me to think. She had definitely said 'I look like I'm only just out of uni' rather than 'I _am_ just out of uni.' It was an odd little thing, something most people wouldn't pick up on. She wasn't most people. Was she older than she looked? If so by how much? It surely couldn't be more than five years, yet the perfect harmony within herself seemed so odd in someone younger than fifty, sixty even! I cut my trail of thoughts _I have to stop looking too deeply into things. She probably meant she looks three or so years younger than she is._ Still, I couldn't get that bugging little feeling to go away, especially after what she said yesterday.

"Shadow Robotnik." The girl that had just been called outside called as she came in.

{A/N: My god I didn't realise how _weird_ that name would be until I put it down to paper just now, anyway, I'll stop disrupting. S&A out.)

"Good luck." I bade my black and red friend. Hoping he'd make it into the top group. I could see Slayde fidgeting. He was next on the list. A minute later and he was back in the room, he called out Slayde's name and Slayde nervously went outside. "How did it go?" I asked as he sat down.

"I got put into the middle group and told I should have took up art." He announced in a disheartened voice. I frowned and then noticed he was happy on the inside anyway. "But then she gave me a chance to change it and my skills with words on the spot saved me. I don't think I'm going to doodle half my time away if she make us do another one of those things."

"That's awesome news Shadow! We're going to be able to spend English together! And we can help each other on our projects and coursework!" I exclaimed, beaming. Shadow seemed to have a similar feeling on his face, but at the same time seemed worried. Slayde came in before I could ask him what was making him feel so worried and shouted out Sonic's name before sitting.

"She told me it was, and I quote. 'The best short story I have read for a long while... And that's saying something.' Then she started going on about Shakespeare, and how much of a genius he was. Anyway, top group like you two. So looks like you're stuck with me for the rest of the year. He turned to see that Shadow was talking to Knuckles and was blatantly ignoring him. Slayde glared at the back of his head.

"Great news Slayde! It'll be nice having a couple of friends round. I don't know whether you noticed, but so far none of Scourge's group has been called up, and a couple of them look worried. Any ideas on what's going on?" I commented as I looked at said group. Most of them were in deep conversation. But two of them were sitting facing the door. Wondering what was going on no doubt.

"As far as I know, they wrote nothing. As such Alexia created some kind of fourth group for them. No idea what they'll be getting though. Maybe they'll be thrown out, but don't get your hopes up." Slayde replied before turning to join in with Shadow's and Knuckles' conversation. I pondered it for a second before realising that I didn't care and decided to listen to the boys discussion about video games.

Soon Alexia was done with getting through everyone on the register and came back in and sat down. I checked the clock above the desk and to my surprise an hour of the lesson had already gone. Only a half hour was left. Alexia pulled out some thin booklets from her desk and walked up to Scourges group, putting one on each place in front of them. The class was deadly silent with all eyes on his gang. "As you didn't complete the task you set me, I didn't know whether you was aptly capable of anything or not, as such here as some handwriting templates that I got off one of my friends that works with infants at a primary school. I'm sure they seem more your level." She told them. Her voice was cold and harsh, as if it sapped the very warmth out of the room. I could see multiple people shiver slightly out of subconscious reaction and half of Scourge's group seemed to be cowering at her icy words. "Now you have a choice." She continued with more ice, and venom, that chilled the very bones of me. I found it odd that she have such an effect on me when she wasn't looking at me, so I could only imagine what those lot were going through, even if it did serve them right. Alexia definitely had an odd air about her. "You can either happily get along with those baby things at home, out of my lesson unless you feel like grovelling at my feet. Or you will do the essay, and have it in to me on Thursday, our final lesson of the week. Do I make myself clear?" She asked with an edge that could have sliced through the thickest of metals.

"Yes Miss Rose." Everyone except Scourge himself grumbled in unison. Scourge's eyes were lit up in pure rage, but he stayed his tongue and nodded mutely.

"Goodo!" Alexia announced, mood jumping. "Now then class, we'll be looking through our booklets on what group we're in today. Just let me find the damn things." Alexia told the group, cheerful and happy as if she hadn't seen an unhappy day for weeks, let alone been seethingly angry five seconds ago. She quickly went around handing them out to everyone before sitting back down. "Read those and then you may ask any questions you have." She stated before picking up her book again. I looked at the clock and noticed that it was ten to five. I quickly got out my time table to look at it and much to my surprise there was two of the two hour blocks for English. We sat in silence for five minutes but then suddenly Slayde raised his hand. "Yes Slayde?" Alexia asked.

"Lexi, I can hear screaming." He stated, looking out of the window, but he wasn't near enough to get a good view of outside as we was on the third floor. Alexia didn't look at all surprised, as if she could hear it herself.

"Now you mention it, I can hear it too. I was thinking it was just some people messing about, but it's getting more frequent and closer." Shadow stated. Half the class suddenly rushed to the window, there were gasps of shock and horror before Alexia sighed as she pushed her way past the class and looked outside herself.

"Oh great." She mumbled to herself sarcastically. I quickly stood up and pushed my way to the front. It looked like a bomb had gone off, there was blood slickly covering the ground outside the college and there were people laying on the ground, dead. "This isn't good." Suddenly someone slammed into the door and knocked it open. A dead body of a white Cheetah fell in, its fur stained with red. That is, a moving dead body fell in. It stood up and started cantering to the nearest living thing it could see, a pig. He squealed in fear, but he had no chance of getting away from something that was built for speed and was knocked down in seconds. His flesh being torn off as he yelled. Half the class ran outside, screaming, men and women alike. Some people stayed because they were so transfixed, they could believe what was happening and our whole group was still there, not knowing what to do. "We need to get out of here." Alexia stated as she walked up to the Cheetah and cleanly snapped its neck. I had to resist staring at her ease of being able to do that and followed her as she walked out the door, the rest of the gang followed too until one of the few that didn't run out started screaming. The pig had gotten back up and had attacked the straggler, a yellow wasp, as she started screaming even louder. Shadow cast his hand towards the former Mobian and a bolt of energy shot out, going through its head and killing the pig where it stood I couldn't help but stare at Shadow now. Alexia had rushed back due to the screams.

"I've been bitten." The Wasp stated horrified. She couldn't believe what was happening. I could feel her disbelief. Alexia looked at the wound.

"It's shallow. Don't fret about it unless you feel like you're about to die from pain or start feeling ill, or something similar." Alexia replied. "Now quickly, we need to get out of here. Come with me to the underground staff car park. We're taking a bus." All of us followed her as she called up the elevator that was reserved for staff with her staff card. With any luck there'd be no one in it. And there wasn't, not even a drop of blood. A sigh of relief was heard amongst the group as screaming started again in another classroom. I paused, I wanted to help them. "We have no time. Come on, quickly." Alexia usher, waving her hand inwards towards the elevator. I quickly got in and she hit the bottom button. I was really hoping that the Wasp we brought with us didn't suddenly turn or we'd all be screwed. _I'd rather not die in an elevator._

"Amy, it's okay." Shadow soothed. He shocked me that he used my first name and that shock stopped me from even thinking about resisting when he pulled me into a hug. He held my shoulder and looked into my eyes. I had never noticed how beautiful his crimson orbs were from up close. "I won't let anything happen to you. I promise." His eyes looked so truthful, and his emotions so determined. I believed him.

"How many of us are there?" Suddenly Slayde's voice came out. "Everyone spread to the edges a bit." He counted, mouthing the words ten of us, eleven including me. There was only seven in the gang so I quickly looked round. Alexia was obviously there and that wasp girl. There was a brown squirrel who I was certain I'd never seen before and then my eyes caught the green I'd missed in the panic. Scourge was with us. Though he didn't have his usual bravado. I know that Pig that was attacked was one of his mates. Maybe after seeing how easily he was turned he was afraid. I _knew_ he was afraid, his emotions said it all. Fear, terror, yet a tiny bit of anger that seemed directed to Shadow. He must have witnessed Shadow taking out the Pig.

"Be prepared. We don't know what's going to be in the underground garage when we get there, even if there should be nothing because of the gates that seal it off." Alexia finished telling us just as the elevator doors opened. There wasn't much in here alive wise. Only two corpses and an equal amount of zombies that I recognised as the maths teacher and another pupil. From the looks of it the maths teacher had been trying to smuggle three female students out in the panic and didn't realise one of them had been bitten. Though what was bugging me was that the two corpses, which had obviously been dead longer than that pig, hadn't been reanimated yet. Did this whatever it was only effect certain people? Certain species? I didn't want to find out, but I bet that I would in the end. Alexia started whispering. "Walk slowly to the minibus. I'll let you inside with the emergency button." We all walked as quietly and slowly as possible. It wasn't so much the two things inside, but the ones that could be right behind the fence. We made it to the bus without alarming the two in the garage and quickly hopped on inside. "Okay, I need to go to that station over there. It holds the keys and opens the gates." Slayde cut her off.

"You are not going over there alone Lexi. Not with those two out there and a possible security guard on the inside." Slayde insisted before changing his tune. "In fact. I should go by myself. I can run faster than you can, fast enough to be in and out in seconds if you tell me what the key looks like."

"No way. I pulled you all down here. I _shall_ take responsibility. I owe it to the world!" Alexia stated. Slayde shook his head.

"I don't care if you owe Bill Gates millions of Mobis (Mobian currency). I'm going whether you like it or not and you may as well just stay safe and let me go alone." Slayde stated in a rather 'I'm not going to be told otherwise' manner.

"I can take care of myself." Alexia said bluntly.

"After seeing you in that classroom I doubt anyone here thinks differently. It doesn't stop the fact that it'll be safer for either me or Shadow to go. I'd say Sonic too but he's never been good at finding things or remembering specifics." Slayde retorted. Sonic looked like he was about to say something until he realised Slayde was being quite truthful and just shrugged. Alexia looked angry and rubbed her temples.

"We don't have time for this, fine you can go alone." Alexia replied in a very irritated voice before proceeding to describe what the key looked like. "And you need to hit the gate control button, but that one's probably pretty obvious." Alexia reminded. Then she mumbled something, just too quite for me to hear. As soon as she finished Slayde was there and back in just a few seconds before the gates started opening, typically making an irritatingly loud screeching noise. The two inside suddenly looked up and started running at Slayde, who hadn't gotten back inside the minibus yet and was in the doorway. Alexia quickly pulled him inside with strength that you really wouldn't expect with her size and stature before hitting the door controls. The things started attempting to ravage the side of the bus in an attempt to get inside.

"Can we get moving?" Sonic asked as he stared at them rather alarmed. I couldn't say I blamed him.

"Yeah, good idea." Alexia replied rather hastily before turning the key in the ignition and setting the bus to drive. She quickly accelerated and made it out of the gates, there was carnage everywhere, blood everywhere. Bodies cluttered the side walk along with cars that had veered off to the side, some luck seemed to have made the middle of the road clear as we drove down the street, seeing people running, some with bite marks and most unscratched, before they were torn down. Sometimes we saw them turn, and sometimes we didn't. It was a nightmare, in the waking world.

"Okay. So I've been drawing up a table." A voice came from the back. The voice was recognisable, and yet at the same time seemed to have some completely new edge to it. I turned around to look to see who it was and I was surprised to see Scourge standing there. I could hear murmurings from our group, but I didn't know what they were. Scourge continued anyway. "Assuming that the murder yesterday was the first attack by these... Zombies I guess. I think we can safely say that as they had that body twelve hours, this virus does not affect Swallows, possibly birds in total as I will continue. Our friend miss Wasp here-."

"Then names Kelly." The Wasp cut across rather hostilely. It seemed no one liked him on this bus. I felt a pang of pity before I realised how much of a jerk he was.

"Kelly I beg your pardon, does not seem to be being affected by it either. So I also think it doesn't affect insects. I mean I've only seen one definite, but I have seen a couple of bees out dead on the street rather than as zombies and we all know that the only two that evolved from that kingdom were those two.

"I also noticed that the maths teacher, an Echidna, was feasting on a Parrot, and the other student, a Hedgehog, was feeding on a lizard. As such we can guess that Parrots are not affected, supporting my generalised bird theory. Neither are lizards, there are very few reptilians that evolved also. But until we _see_ a crocodile and alligator I can't say this for certain, but I don't think reptilians are effected either.

"So far we have seen, and Echidna, multiple Hedgehogs, some Humans, a Cheetah and a Lioness. All the evidence I've so far gathered indicates that this disease, or whatever the hell it is, is affects mammals. And mammals only." Scourge concluded. Even though at the start most people on the bus were scoffing, the exceptions being me, Shadow and Alexia. Everyone was listening intently at the end. Slayde started nodding.

"You could very well be onto something there Scourge. I don't like you, and I'll openly admit it. But this explains how your group managed to get away with so much. You're extremely analytical of the situation and are good at taking in details that others don't. I should have realised this as well but I was... Distracted." He concluded. I noticed him glance slightly over at Alexia. He was sooo into her it wasn't even funny.

"I was always the brains of the group. By the time I felt I could grow out of it, they depended on me too much. To tell you the truth I liked the reverence, but it was also a pressure. The second command told me when it was just us two that if I ever made a try to leave he would not hesitate in getting the group to smash me into the ground. He was the motivational speaker of sorts, so I knew he could do it. Made it hard to leave, even when I got bored. It's why I'm only doing one subject with them this year." Scourge explained, now it explained why he seemed to feel so down and low inside, even when he seemed so cheerful with his mates, now I looked back it was... too cheerful... like he was just putting on an act.

I was surprised I never realised before.

Suddenly there was a road of thunder. _Great, just what we need._ I though as I looked at the great big cloud that was blocking the sun out slowly but surely.

"So what are we going to do?" I asked. I was anxious to know if my parents were okay. But I didn't want to get my hopes up. I knew their chances were low at a school.

"We should had back to mine. My mum was an ex-GUN agent, she might know something about what's going on." Shadow stated. I saw Slayde give him a funny look. I wasn't sure whether that was because he was lying or because he wasn't meant to tell anyone. Shadow was hard to read sometime and all I got from Slayde was disbelief. The thunder cashed again.

"Where do you live then Shadow?" Alexia asked, suddenly having to swerve around a car that was in the middle of the road rather than at the side. Shadow told her the address, "Ah good, we're going in that direction anyway. Glad it's in the city, wouldn't fancy my chances in the villages."

"Well I hate my folks, so I don't really care where we go as long as it isn't with them." Scourge suddenly cut across.

"Yeah, and I only have my mum and she's in the college, so it's too late to go back for her now." Sonic also cut in his point of view, though he looked rather sad and disheartened.

"Well I've lived alone for a long time. So I'm not bothered." Alexia announced in response to the others. I looked at the Wasp and Squirrel we have brought along. The squirrel stayed silent and the Wasp looked uneasy for a second before replying.

"I live in care, so I'm not bothered." She replied. Tails looked shifty, as if he was deciding on something that he knew would get him in to trouble.

"I'm going to go and find one of my friends." Tails announced as he walked to the bus door. Sonic cut him off and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, I'm sorry, but. He's probably already gone." Sonic whispered awkwardly. Tails looked down dejectedly but went back to his seat.

"We're almost at that address that you told me Shadow. Everyone get ready to rush inside. I'll hold up the rear. Along with Slayde." Alexia announced than added seeing him about to open his mouth. "Make sure that you all go straight for the door, Shadow or Slayde should probably go first to make sure that their mother is actually in."

"No need for that, I've text her." Shadow replied, holding up a mobile.

"How did that get through? All cells are down." I suddenly asked. Shadow shrugged.

"Mum patched it into the GUN network for me." He replied, I rolled my eyes, of course. Suddenly I noticed that it was starting to rain, and not lightly at that. It was a full blown rain storm, boarding tropical. Don't get me wrong, having to forest nearby we did get a lot of rain, but this was just bad timing. The rain forced Alexia to slow down, and with all of the cars scattered across the road and all of the faster side roads being blocked off we had to go round into the very edge of the city and then double back so we could make it to Shadow's house. The journey took us an impressive two hours to get there.

Alexia suddenly drove up a curb and parked the bus. We was near to the house and there we currently no undead in sight. Alexia opened the door and Shadow quickly hopped out. Running to his door Maria opened it almost instantly. The group quickly rushed out just as several undead turned the corner at the end of the street. My eyes widened as a couple of them started haphazardly running towards us and we all ran to the door, Alexia was at back, pushing everyone towards the door as she locked the bus in a way that wouldn't allow for the out buttons to access it. Slayde made it all the way to the door before he realised that Alexia was still really far behind. I had to pull him in and close the door because of the running zombies that hadn't seemed to have noticed Alexia and made straight for us were just about to make it through the door. We all held our breath, except Slayde who was trying to wrestle out the combined restraints of me, Sonic and Shadow. There was plenty of growling. A few grunts and a few *Flumps* but not screaming. I dared to take a look out of the looking piece on the door, to not much avail due to the rain. It suddenly let up for a few seconds and I saw Alexia smoothing out her trousers and quills, probably trying to get blood out them and eyeing the bottom of the street, the four that had try to come and get us all laying dead on the ground around her. I tried to open the door but she held it shut and wouldn't let me. _Why on earth is this door going outwards? All doors I know go inwards. _I thought as I looked at it strangely, and angrily. Maybe it was a fitting error that Maria wasn't fussed about. Alexia stood there for two whole minutes until she moved away from the door and walked inside. She was utterly drenched.

"Why-?" Alexia cut me off with a look. I held my tongue. Her emotions seemed to be extremely wild, which was odd compared to the usual stoic nature I was used to from her. So wild they were I couldn't even recognise half of them. Just a splash of fear mixed in with a dabble worry. Slayde looked relieved and I turned to find that it was only Slayde, Shadow, Sonic and I that stayed and waited, Slayde had run upstairs and in seconds was back with a nice heavy towel, Alexia draped it on herself and left for them living room. Me and Shadow were the only two left, Shadow beckoned and we both shuffled into the living room and I found that it seemed oddly bigger than usual. With three sofa's and two love seats. Able to sit a generous 13 people. We had twelve now that we was at Maria's. Shadow sat next to me on one of the Sofa's with Scourge on the other side. The two girls we didn't know very well were on one love seat, Alexia was alone on another. Slayde was sitting next to his mum on the central sofa with Rouge next to him and Sonic, Knuckles and Tails were on the last sofa together.

"So then. I bet you're all wondering what's going on?" Maria asked. The usual kindly told was still there, but her elderliness had seemed to have just evaporated in thin air. Everyone murmured in agreement with her question, except Shadow and Slayde. "I was hacking into GUN yesterday after the attack on the girl. I came across some rather disturbing. What is it dear?"

"If you work for GUN why do you have to hack into it? And how on earth could you? The securities tighter than trying to get an elephant through a needle head." Scourge cut across. Maria looked at Shadow then Slayde.

"I used to work for them. And I've been hacking into their system for almost forty years now. I was employed there for a few months in which I placed a back door in security." Maria explained. "Obviously Shadow thought it was the only way to get you all here, and I don't blame him. Now then, on with my explanation. I came across something rather disturbing. GUN have been working on some kind of immortality drug that works like a virus from some blood they received. It goes inside you and alters your cells to be never dying. Unfortunately it wasn't working, they successfully managed to halt all process of the hosts cells, preventing them for aging. Unfortunately it came with other repercussions. The subjects lost their minds. The virus destroyed all positive thought. Apparently they thought that they were working off the blood of an immortal. But it was in fact the blood of a _semi_-_immortal_. Meaning that there was no regenerative effects to counter balance the unhinging and ultimate destruction of the mind. From what they manage to gather in their years of study. It takes the Mobian, or human, back to their most primal stage. So strong is their need to eat that they attack anything and are hard to stop. Tearing an arm off wouldn't stop them. The head has to be disconnected from the rest of the organs to stop them efficiently. In fact. It's the only way to kill them for sure. They seem to be able to function without oxygen, without blood in their bodies. They made the perfect soldier, but it was completely uncontrollable. It's not even the worst part. The virus can spread to other mammals. Those damn fools at GUN got in over their head with this." Maria finished, looking tired I checked my watch and to my surprise it was already half eight, everyone looked tired from the day they had except Alexia who looked the same as always. Maria started talking about something else. But I wasn't really paying attention and excused myself to the toilet. I quickly rushed to the back door and let myself out, jumping over the back garden fence and using the spare key to open my back door.

"Mum? Dad?" I shouted. Hoping that they were in there. I explored the house for what must have been half an hour but I couldn't find anyone. Suddenly an envelope on the desk caught my eye. I picked it up and looked at it _Amelia_ it said in my mother elaborate handwriting. My hands shook. I went to open it just as I heard a scuffling noise. I stuffed the letter in my pocket and turned around. "Hello?" I asked. Suddenly a zombie came rambling in from the back door. I had forgotten to close it behind me. I panicked and ran up their stairs. The zombie made its way to the stairs and tripped. It didn't seem to know how to get up them. I took the opportunity to look for something heavy. I ran into mum and dad's room and I found the strange hammer that they hid in case of a burglar. I came back to find the thing slowly climbing the stairs. It seemed like it was learning as it sped up as it made its way up the stairs. I got the odd hammer ready and just as it made a grab for me I hit it round the head as hard as I could. With a loud wet *Crack* its head caved in as it was mashed between the wall and the hammer. I looked at the stain and was glad I wasn't going to be told off for making such a mess. I could just imagine it now. I paused and looked at the hammer. It seemed as if it was built for me, perfect weight, balance and it even suited me. But it was far too big. _God I wish this was small enough to carry around conveniently._ I thought. Much to my surprise the thing suddenly shrunk itself down to the size of a large key ring. I stared at it in the palm of my hand for a minute before I shrugged and pocketed it. _That was weird_. I heard another scuffling noise and grabbed it out my pocket. No idea how to make it bigger again.

"Rose is that you?" Shadow's voice called out. I sighed in relief and came down the stairs. As soon as he caught the sight of me he frowned. "Amy. If you wanted to come here I'd have brought you." He scolded me, bluntly and angrily. "Let's go back." Shadow requested. I nodded, I didn't want to be in this place any longer, it wasn't a home any more. We both went out the back door and climbed the fence again. Going back in Shadow's door. He pressed a button behind him and the door was suddenly sealed with some sort of metal. I looked at it mystified. "You missed the discussion about how the house is secured with metal on all the windows and doors. We'll be safe in here." Shadow reassured me as he carted me into the living room.

"...Why and how is the electricity still up? I mean there's probably no one to run the plant right?" Alexia asked, seemly changing the subject of a lengthy conversation.

"Well it's run not too much unlike a conventional power station, except that instead of flames from an oil pit or whatever they use a red Chaos Emerald to run the electricity. I don't know whether you know about the seven elements of Chaos?" Maria questioned. Alexia nodded but everyone looked mystified, I did too but they didn't seem to broaden the subject. "It'll probably go down as it needed a lot of maintenance but we have our own power source here. The yellow Chaos emerald." Maria explained. I was still lost.

"That explains why electric is so cheap here. I've lived here for three years and lived many places before that and no where had as cheap a bill as there is here." Alexia stated. It made me wonder just how much older she actually was than she appeared.

"I have two guest rooms in this house, one with a double bed and one with two singles. Slayde and Shadow also both have king sized beds. So if Shadow goes and bunks with Slayde. Then two girls can go in Shadow room together, two girls can go in the spare room with the double bed. Unfortunately we're left then with 1 girl and four guys. Three guys can sleep on the sofa, but a guy and a girl will have to go in together in the spare room with the two singles."

"I volunteer to go in with Knuckles." Rouge piped up suddenly. So she _finally_ noticed him staring at her. Took her long enough. The brown squirrel spoke for the first time.

"Kelly, will you come in with me?" She asked the Wasp. Kelly nodded. They both left to go upstairs as Maria led them and Rouge and the dumbstruck Knuckles to their rooms.

"Well that leave just me and you Alexia." I announced to Alexia. She smiled at me.

"That it does." She replied.

"I know where you room is Shadow so we'll just go up now." I told him as me and Alexia left for the stairs. I walked into Shadow's room and it hadn't seemed to have changed at all. Though I had only seen it yesterday. I looked at the satin black sheets on the king sized bed. All of a sudden everything went black inside the room as all the electricity must have cut off. Seconds later the generator kicked into gear and there was light again. I looked over at Shadow's TV and decided that I was going to play on his game. Switching it on it made me laugh when I found out that he and Slayde were on Slayde's. Alexia wandered over.

"Can I join in?" She asked. I handed her all of the stuff that Shadow had given to me just the day before, but what seemed like years ago.

"You know how to play?" I asked her.

"Yeah I have one of these at home." Alexia replied, smiling at me. We joined Shadow's party and they took us on this weird thing that he called 'combat training' except that it was offline because the internet was no longer working. I wasn't used to this kind of play and got killed a hell of a lot, but after a while I started to get used to it. When I noticed that it was already eleven I decided to tell Shadow that I was going off.

"I'll come too, I don't want to keep you up by playing on this." Alexia announced considerately. I walked up to the bed and paused in shock. I didn't pick up any pyjamas! I'd either have to go in my underwear and deal with quite possibly having to were the same lot a few days _as well as_ nights (Eww) or I'd have to sleep naked next to another woman so that I didn't over use my underwear. I didn't know what to pick, as I'd never been a bashful person when it came to undressing in front of females due to the way the rooms were in the changing rooms for the swimming pool at secondary school. I looked over to Alexia to see what she would do to quickly turn away blushing. She was completely naked. "I'd go for cleanliness over bashfulness any day Amy." She told me as if she's just read my mind and she slid into bed. I took off my top and jeans before taking off my bra. By then I was already flushing so hot that I thought I was about to catch fire. Getting changed was one thing, but now that I was thinking about it, getting into bed was completely different. I left my knickers on and then realised with yet more blushing that today was the day I had to pick up one of the thongs I had for my tight fitting skirts for interviews because most of my normal underwear was in the wash, never to be washed apparently. "I looked up to see Alexia staring at me with a smile. "Nice body." She complimented. Quickly held my arm over my breast as a natural reaction. "Sorry, that wasn't appropriate." She mumbled as she turned over and laid down. I felt her anger at herself forcing me to relax and remember that she wasn't one of those girls that used to tease me in secondary school for being ugly, she was the second oldest here, or at least I thought she must be.

"It's fine, I over reacted." I comforted as I suddenly had a confidence boost and took off my thong, placing it with the rest of my clothes in but folded pile next to my side of the bed and slide into the bed. Alexia didn't turn back around but I could tell that she wasn't angry with herself any more. Though there was another emotion there that I didn't quite recognise because it was being obscured with sadness. "Are you okay?" I asked her kindly.

"Yeah, just thinking about all the loss and pain that's going on right now. You lost your parents didn't you?" She announced then asked.

"Yeah, I think I have done. I didn't see their bodies, but there was no one in." I told her. I didn't know what to feel at the moment, the danger was still too much of a threat to me.

"I lost my parents a long time ago. It still hurts. Everyone else is going through that right now, and there's nothing I can do about it. I've felt helpless before in my life, but never to this degree." Alexia confided. I didn't really know what to do. If we were clothed I may have hugged her to cheer her up, but a naked hug would probably end up disgusted her. Not to mention I'd find it a bit awkward. "By the way, I'm sort of... Bisexual. Which is why I complimented you on how you looked." I froze at this bit of information. "Being in this bed with you is technically illegal, good thing I can't exactly lose my licence now huh?" She laughed a fake laugh. I put one of my arms around her and she calmed.

"Good night Lexi." I muttered to her sleepily. I was getting really tired now. I felt her happiness at being accepted by me just before I drifted off.

"Night Amy." Her voice rang in my half conscious ears.


	4. Is This Really It?

_Well then! As in ever zombie story it seems that it's about time for bad things to start happening to the main cast. Enjoy!_

_Chapter 3: Is This Really It? _

I slowly woke because of a pressure that I could feel on my breasts. I tried to ignore it, but it started to ache a little so I opened my eyes. I found Alexia sleeping happily on my breasts. Snoring none the less. I just hoped she hadn't drooled on my fur as I gently picked up her head and moved it over to the pillow that it was supposed to be leaning on. Unfortunately the snoring abruptly stopped and she shot up. She looked around for a few seconds before calming down and laying down next to me.

"What's going on?" Alexia asked casually. I suddenly feel awkward. It wasn't so bad when she was asleep, but now she was looking at me I was once again embarrassed. I then realised one of my breasts was still out and quickly pulled up the cover. "That looked a bit sore. Did I? Crap, sorry. I haven't shared a bed with anyone for a while." She announced worriedly. "I hope you're not annoyed at me?" She asked. I shook my head. I was too dopey to try and come up with any coherent words. Alexia smiled and then quickly hopped out of bed. "Whoa! It's midday! We overslept, didn't know how to set this damn alarm." I quickly hopped out of bed myself and rushed my clothes on while Alexia was doing some rather odd morning stretches that looked to improve flexibility. Once I had finished getting dressed I looked over to Alexia and couldn't help but stare despite the fact all she had put on were her undies. I was watching her pulled the kind of stretches I'd seen people do in various PE videos and courses but with the kind of grace I'd expect if I ever met an elf, which I doubted as the race was now extinct and had been for more than a thousand years. As lore tells it, killed off in a war between the Mobians and Elves. The Elves were superior in every way and were on a course to win until a Hedgehog stumbled across an ancient Echidnian shrine quite by accident and discovered he could use the Chaos Emeralds within. I'd go into it more, but there's much more important things right now.

"Liking the view?" Alexia asked, smirking. I realised that in my trance of thoughts I was staring right at her. I blushed and turned away.

"Sorry." I muttered. Alexia pulled her jeans on.

"No worries. Always good to check it all out before you decide." Alexia soothed in an odd way. I didn't really know how to reply to that so I just let her finish getting dressed in silence with my back to her. It felt odd not having a shower in the morning but I shrugged at it and I quickly peeped round to see if she was done, I saw that she was. "You're cute when you're shy. Whoever ends up with you is someone lucky indeed." Alexia told me as she left the room, making me blush even more. I quickly followed once my blush had gone and quickly went to the toilet before heading downstairs.

"Rose! I've got a couple things to tell you. I'll tell you the more interesting one, then the more important one." Shadow reeled off right away. Alexia walked past me quite close.

"He's rather excited about the first the little fluffy 'Hog." She whispered into my ear. Either Shadow didn't hear, which I doubted, or he chose to ignore her words and my laughter -and Slayde's from the kitchen- and continued as if there had been no interruption.

"Okay, right. Get a load this!" He shouted in glee as he turned a laptop round. I looked at it blankly for a few seconds before giving up.

"What?" I asked. Shadow sighed and rolled his eyes and Alexia sniggered.

"The internet Rose." Shadow announced as he pointed at it. My mouth went into a large 'O' shape. "It would seem that last night's outage was a coincidence. All the internet is working and also it would appear that the entire of Mobius of peachy except us. There is no zombie plague anywhere but here, and GUN is keeping it hushed."

"That the two bits of news then?" I asked. Shadow shook his head.

"Nah, there's this thing to do with the zombies mum wanted you to check out, well everyone." Shadow told me as he clicked on a few things. "Okay, he's footage from last night, we've hacked into all available security cameras, which is most since we're now pumping power into the grid. Any other survivors will no longer have to go without! Anyway. As you can see, all eight of these randomly picked photos are full of zombies, least is 5 most is about 25-30, we can't quite count how many are in the group in the distance. Here is a bit of footage from this morning. So some cameras have nothing on, some have up to ten. Now here's some live footage." He switched to eight screens of live time. I gasped when I saw it. There was a total of two zombies, one in screen two and one in screen five.

"What the Charles Dickens?" Alexia exclaimed earning a funny look from Shadow. I was too busy staring at the screens to find the saying odd at all.

"So they're nocturnal?" Amy half commented, half asked Shadow.

"Seems like it apart from a couple who managed to evolve." Shadow replied. "You know, it took me ages to come to that conclusion." Shadow commented half smiling.

"Did you notice that both that are outside are wearing sunglasses?" I asked Shadow as I continued to observe the picture, undisturbed by Shadow's comment and his obviously disheartened tone. Shadow quickly rushed over and looked at them.

"So they are! Must have something to do with their eyes then." Shadow commented, trying to actually throw something useful in and feeling a little slow for the first time in his life, ever. Suddenly Sonic came zooming round the corner.

"Sleepy heads! Glad you two finally joined the land of the living!" He stated before laughing at his joke, then his laughter faded into a rather nervous one as he realised that wasn't really true anymore. Everyone just stared at him silently. "Erm... Awkwarddd..." Sonic trailed off before snapping his fingers. "Anyone want pancakes?" He asked. I looked at him in surprise.

"You can cook?! I think I'd rather pass, don't want food poisoning." I stated jokily. Sonic gave me a dark look while I could hear Alexia laughing behind me.

"Hardy har har. Very funny. Slayde's cooking them, not me." Sonic replied rather more bitterly than I expected.

"Definitely not eating them in that case. That guy is just plain... Well. I mean I'd rather not die?" I told Sonic.

"I can hear that!" A shout came from the kitchen. Alexia burst out into laughter again. Apparently she found sarcastic digs funny. Either way, she had an odd laugh that reminded me of someone who had seen so much they'd almost forgotten how to laugh. It was weird, a lot about her didn't fit.

"I'll have three, got to make up for the lack of breakfast." I shouted to him, though he would probably hear if I just spoke normally. Alexia stopped laughing and smiled in an amused way, her eyes sparkling with entertainment.

"I'll take five please." She told him. I looked at her in surprise. Either she ate a lot more than me normally or she was very hungry today. And I ate a lot. Even if I did avoid unhealthy stuff! Everyone else in the room seemed equally shocked but everyone kept it to themselves.

"So what are we going to do today?" I asked. Shadow looked around to see if everyone present was listening.

"We're planning on doing a raid on a nearby shopping centre. We're low on supplies, not that Slayde's need to cook things with too many ingredients helps." He shouted the last part.

"Right, none for Shadow." Slayde shouted from out the kitchen.

"Didn't think I was getting any anyway." Shadow shouted back. I giggled behind my hand, I didn't know why but their brotherly rivalry in such a serious situation amused me. Slayde suddenly rushed through with Alexia's pancakes, handed them to her and darted back into the kitchen. "Stuff's on the table." Shadow answered Alexia's unasked question as he pointed at the table through the archway in the other room. He came up and whispered in my ear so quietly I could barely hear. "He does cook well so we _do_ need supplies."

"I heard that too!" Slayde shouted from the kitchen.

"You would have!" Shadow shouted back before lowering his voice again. "We have an armoured truck from my mum's days against GUN, me and Slayde are going. He insists so we don't pick up anything rubbish. Ha! We will probably need others as well though."

"I'm game." Alexia's voice cut across, it didn't surprise me she wanted to go, but at the same time it did. She didn't really make sense to me.

"I'll come too, it'll do me good to get out." I replied to Shadow. Slayde came out with mine and Shadow pancakes. "Thanks Slayde." I said before walking over to the table and putting lemon and sugar on them. I knew it was bad for my teeth but I couldn't care less. No dentists to nag me any more! Once we was all done eating. Shadow went through a door that I presumed lead to the garage and Slayde followed him in. I looked at Alexia and she shrugged and followed. I smirked and followed too, it wasn't what I was expecting. The van itself looked quite lightweight, but I could tell that it was a very honed metal. The windows were completely darkened out from the outside, and from the looks of things had took a bullet or two with as little as a scuff.

"I'm driving, hop in." Shadow announced as he opened the back. The back again wasn't what I expected, there was a seat that looked to fit three people on one side that looked like it folded into a bed and a computer on the other side with a stationary swivelling chair, as in bolted to the floor. Despite this there was plenty of room for a lot of 'shopping'.

It took Shadow almost an hour and a half to make his way to the nearest convenience store and there seemed to be so very few zombies about on the way, but despite that there was a load of things scattered in the street making us go barely faster than walking, not that walking would be safer mind. Occasionally I'd think I saw a person, but it was just another lumbering zombie. As soon as we made it to the store we realised the doors were open, which wasn't good because all host of beasties could be in there.

"I'll do a quick check." Shadow announced and quickly walked inside, poking his head out the door a second later. "All the lights are on, so there's no zombies in sight. Be careful when near dark corners though. We'll go in pairs. Slayde and Lexi, me and Amy. We'll meet at the checkout, not the van the checkout in half an hour. We should avoid going outside until we're all together in case any of them followed us here." Shadow announced as he closed the doors to prevent and from coming in. Breaking the two automatic doors and grabbing some keys off the dead body of a Pigeon. Slayde and Lexi went off almost right away, both pushing a trolley each. "While they look for food we're off to liberate some clothes and other things from racks and shelves." Shadow announced. I grinned. He put it like it wasn't and was at the same time. It _was_ thievery, but how could you steal from someone who was dead... Or worse?

"What we looking for exactly Shadow?" I asked, pushing my own trolley. Shadow pointed at the area with the clothes and zoomed over there with his ridiculous speed. Everything that could have possibly fit anyone in our group went in his basket until it was full. Suddenly I heard the click of metal and something cold pressed against the back of my head.

"Move, and the pink one dies." A rough voice muttered to the both of us. In my head, I begged Shadow not to be reckless and held my breath. Shadow stayed still for a few seconds. "Okay, now-." Shadow had quickly spun around to grab his gun while he was distracted. I heard a loud bang and a pain at the side of my head that made me instantly pass out.

I came to who knows how much later. I looked up to see Shadow crying against a pillar. I found that I couldn't find my voice so I forced myself up. Shadow heard the noise and spun around, gun in his hand. "I thought I told you- Amy?" He started angrily, then sounded confused. I touched the side of my head where the pain had been a winced dramatically in pain and at the wetness. The bullet must had scuffed the side of my head. I put my hand on Shadow's and forced him to lower the gun because he was frozen with shock. I pulled him into a hug. "I thought. I though. You were dead. You had no pulse. I was sure." Shadow stuttered, it was obvious he couldn't believe it. He finally accepted it and pulled me into the hug I was giving him. He gently touched the wound. I internally winced but held it together. "A flesh wound? It feels like a chip of bone came off but not much more. Do you feel... Okay? Like, internally." He asked me. Again I found I couldn't speak, but I nodded. Suddenly Slayde and Alexia were on the scene.

"Hey! We're all done in the food area... Isn't that blood... Are you guys...? Oh god! Amy! I'm going to run to see if they were selling first aid kits, I'd have been here sooner, only Alexia couldn't be left alone!" He urgently suggested as he ran off.

"I can look after myself!" Alexia shouted after him as she came up to me and Shadow protectively moved me away from her. I rubbed his shoulder to tell him it was alright and he loosened his grip, but didn't let go. I didn't know how much he cared. She touched my wound with surprising thoroughness, yet didn't seem to hurt me at all.

"From what I can tell, part of her skull has chipped, it might not have caused internal bleeding but may have affected her ability to speak. Her ability to think should still be intact fully. All I can really say is Amy, can you speak?" She asked me. I opened my mouth, but found my thoughts scrambled as I tried to grasp the words. I could _think_ what I wanted to say but as soon as it came to saying it there was nothing there. I hoped that this wasn't a permanent thing. I shook my head. "I thought so. You should be fine in a day or two, but we should probably wrap it up." I wanted to ask her how she knew all this, but I knew I couldn't. "I wanted to be a nurse. To answer the question you look like you're dying to ask." Alexia told me. I could feel my look of shock. She wanted to be a nurse, but ended up a teacher. So just how much qualification did she have? And how old was she. It was just confusing as time went on. Slayde suddenly got back.

"Okay I've found this." He said as he held up a first aid kit. He went to hand it to Shadow, but Shadow was too busy holding me and Alexia was holding her hand out. "Er... There you go then." He commented with confusion. Alexia smiled at him before taking a bandage out and getting to work on patching me up. It took her several minutes until she was pleased with it.

"We need to get ready to leave. It's getting close to winter and the nights are early. We don't want to be stuck in here for the night." Slayde commented. Suddenly I found myself picked up by Shadow bridal still. I tried to protest, but once again I couldn't find any words so I resigned myself to my fate. Slayde went up to the door of the store and looked out of the window of the store. "Oh shit... Guys, a bunch of zombies are standing near our van in the shade. Shadow went to look out the window and allowed me to see it too, there were five zombies trying to shake the van open to try and find out what was inside and several others were standing in the shade nearby. It seemed that a lot of them were willing to brave the already darkening sun.

"What we going to do?" Shadow casually asked Slayde. Slayde looked at him horrified from his casualness. Slayde shrugged. "Oh you damn pussy. Hold Rose... Actually, Alexia, you hold Rose." He turned and put me in her arms. Alexia looked at me warmly and I pouted in annoyance at been carried by everyone. I then saw Shadow go out the door, I tried to grab him but I was too slow. I tried to call out but nothing came out other than a hiss of air.

And he was gone.

Alexia quickly moved me so I could see outside. I saw Shadow pull something out of each of his pockets as the zombies started turning to him, cantering at their top speed. One by one they fell again and again and again, each one with a small red dot appearing in their forehead. The last zombie didn't even both trying to go after Shadow and ran away instead. Shadow was obviously thinking what I was as he shot him as he ran. _Their ability to learn will be the death of us all._ I denounced to myself, glad I could still come up with words in my head. He looked back at us all and waved us towards himself, calling them all clear. Slayde opened the door and Alexia rushed me out, I was still annoyed I was being carried, but at least it meant I could be lazy, I still felt dizzy from the bullet scuffing me and I didn't really notice earlier because of all the adrenaline.

"Shadow, where the hell did you get those?" Slayde asked, asking the question we was all thinking. Shadow didn't reply right away and simply took to slowly opening the doors to the van.

"I _acquired_ them from someone who didn't need them anymore." Shadow replied calmly after a while. Slayde looked at him quite sternly.

"Okay, I won't ask further as you look like you don't want to be asked. Just, are those colt M1911's? I haven't seen one in real life before." Slayde asked Shadow in awe. I rolled my eyes, boys and their toys. Shadow seemed to be thinking something similar as he hesitated to giving it to Slayde.

"It's not a toy you know." Shadow stated rather plainly. Slayde looked barely put off at all and just nodded.

"I know it isn't." He replied. Shadow sighed and handed him one of the guns, but not before taking the ammo cartridge out of it. Slayde looked at him sadly.

"You've perfected medieval weapons by your own choice, I was only really interested in kendo and spent the rest of my time on the mastery of modern weapons. So stop getting so low about it." Shadow told him in an irritated voice, my shock had worn away a bit more and I realised I could once again feel people's emotions, I didn't even know that it went! Slayde was ecstatic for some reason. Alexia was contentment mixed with a shade of desire which I had already grown used to from her, that was about as deep as I could feel from her. Shadow was different though, no longer came the happy oblivious aloofness that I always used to get from him, his insides were in turmoil and the happy aloofness had been replaced by bitter confused aloofness. I wanted to ask him what was wrong, but I knew I couldn't. I hated not being able to speak, it was the worst. "We need to get moving, we don't know whether the noise of the gunshots will attract attention." Shadow stated, I quickly looked out and could see what I swear were eyes watching us. Alexia quickly carried me inside and laid me down in the back, I didn't notice before but it was more like some kind of sofa than a normal car seat. I then remembered it looked like it folded out into a bed, I quickly turned around to look at it to find that Shadow had indeed extended it into its bed mode. Alexia went straight back out, no doubt to go and help bringing the shopping in that we had ended up neglecting due to the zombies and myself. I could hear mumbling outside, but nothing that I could make out. Everything suddenly seemed a little darker.

"Guys, we need to get in the van. Now." I heard Slayde shout. I sat up on the bed and looked through the front window. My eyes widened as I took in what I saw. Hordes were coming towards us, most of them walking slowly, but some of them were getting close to a jog. I realised that the sun had been blotted out by a cloud. Shadow was right about the gunshots attracting attention.

"No, the van will never make it through that many zombies! We need to head back inside the shop and barricade ourselves in, possibly for the night." Shadow shouted back to him just as he jumped into the van and picked me up in one fluid motion. It made me jump but not in a bad way as he carried me bridal style towards the shopping centre as Slayde slammed the door shut and was pushing some stuff back in again. Alexia was already there, holding the door open. Shadow got me inside, put me down and quickly ran over to a set of shelves that looked too heavy to possibly lift and started lifting it centimetres from the ground, carrying it to the front. Slayde got in and Alexia closed to door, hitting an emergency lock button that she had spotted as Slayde quickly helped Shadow move the shelves in the way of the door. They continued moving shelf after shelf until all the glass was covered.

"Are there any other entrances." Slayde pushed out while panting for breath. Shadow shrugged, too worn out from moving all the stuff as well. I shook my head, I knew this place fairly well as I came here a couple of weeks ago. Slayde nodded at me before sitting on the floor. Alexia sat next to him and joined him.

"This trip is just turning out to be one hell of a trip to the shop." Alexia commented. Shadow seemed to have caught his breath as he was pacing up and down the shelves looking for holes and weak spots.

"Yeah, I'm more thinking about how lucky it is that there's none inside." Shadow stated. Looking around. I just realised it when he said there hadn't been a single zombie inside, the place seemed completely deserted, everywhere we had been in our search had been empty, save the one person that tried to shoot me.

"It's not as odd as you think." Alexia commented. Slayde and Shadow looked at her questioningly as a piece of information Rouge told me the other day popped into my head. "The floof was declared 'unsafe' by safety advisers, they had to close up and get some more supports for it. Work was due to start tomorrow, so naturally there's no one in here except maybe a brave janitor." There was suddenly a loud bang that made me jump, it sounded like something slamming itself against the window. Shadow quickly walked over, so fast I'd have missed it if I blinked. Now all eyes were on Shadow.

"Seems that they are attacking each other already." Shadow commented as he walked back to me, he felt the back of my head gently and looked me in the eyes. "Why do you think that is Rose?" Shadow questioned me.

"Maybe they're fighting for leadership?" Slayde chipped in. Shadow turned and looked at him.

"Maybe. They seem to be developing intelligence far faster than anything ever seen on this planet." Shadow commented back as he walked back away from me. "So what are we going to do? We obviously can't get back to the van very easily. Unless someone has a mini-gun on them?" He half joked without smiling.

"We should find a phone. The landlines are still active even if the mobiles aren't and we need to tell them that we're not dead. Because at this rate we'll be staying here the night. "Alexia told the group. I sighed. This was _not _how I was planning on spending tonight. In fact I didn't really know just how I was going to spend tonight. But at least I'd be able to wear pyjamas tonight, even if it was inside a rather large shopping mall that had just about everything in it. Even kitchen sinks.

"I'll check the ground floors security office. How many ways up to the next floor are there?" Shadow asked, prepping himself to leave.

"There are three, but I doubt that the elevators are functional. So two stairways on either side." Alexia replied. Shadow nodded.

"You three get to the upper floor and seal off the west stairwell. I'll go make sure that they know we're all still kicking." "Shadow replied before he walked off. "Be safe you guys!" He shouted to us as he looked at me. I looked at Slayde, who seemed torn between staying with Alexia and going with Shadow.

"Come on guys." Alexia announced as she started walking towards the west staircase. I followed silently right away, followed shortly by the still debating within himself Slayde. Torn between two different kinds of protectiveness. From the look of things he had decided that Shadow could take care of himself.

The walk upstairs was silent and uneventful, no one really seemed in the mood to talk, and I couldn't really blame them. The situation wasn't exactly the best. After we made it up Slayde started automatically stacking up things on the staircase. I turned around to see all of everything that we would likely need for the night. Although downstairs did indeed hold most of the food and clothes, the upstairs had a lot more. Furnishings for the house. Bedrooms, bathrooms, livings rooms, you name it. I went and sat on one of the beds, watching Slayde pile up the barricade with the occasional help from Alexia. Alexia seemed to be much stronger than she looked as she was picking up the same kind of things as Slayde with the same amount of effort, though she looked like she was trying to put on an act that she was struggling for some reason. I wasn't sure whether it was for sympathy or if she was trying to hide something. After several minutes I started hearing similar noises coming from the far end of the shop floor. I silently left to investigate and found Shadow barricading the other staircase.

"Hey Rose." He announced without looking. He seemed a little more cheerful now. "I found the elevator activation button in the security room, so I switched one of them back on. I brought it up and put something in the way of the door in order to make sure it doesn't close so it can't be called downstairs. In the meantime... Well there's enough stuff here to make it impossible to get through, even for an Echidnian. I started the pile of stuff at the turn of the staircase, so they'd have to move the entirety of the second part of the staircase of fridges and wardrobes and all the other heavy stuff that I could find." Shadow told me. I nodded my head, unable to comment. "I would say go tell the others. But you can't really. Erm..." Shadow finished almost dramatically before shaking his head and continuing with what he was doing. "Why don't you go to sleep. You need it after the day you've had." Shadow told me. I could tell I looked sad at his words. But I could also tell he was right. I did need sleep after my head being hurt. "The elevator I activated was the one near the west staircase. The ones nearest the beds. That's where we'll set up camp. See you in a few, if you're awake." Shadow stated as he turned to smile at me before continuing with a rather heavy looking fridge. "Might fill this with food actually..." I heard him mumble to himself as I walked off. As soon as I got to the other I pointed in Shadow's direction and ruffled up my hair into spikes before pulling a grumpy face. The others laughed.

"Okay, Shadow's over there. Thanks for telling us." Slayde replied though his laughter. I pointed at the nearest bed and imitated laying on a pillow.

"Yeah, go rest Amy. We'll be fine getting this done. You do need rest." Alexia stated. I yawned before walking over to the bed, jumping on it. And I instantly fell into a deep sleep.

"I'm telling you. That's what happened." Shadow stated loudly, voice disturbing my sleep. It was completely dark now, only one light on in the distance.

"Shadow you'll wake her." I heard Alexia's voice come across, they fell silent for a few seconds and I heard someone stand up. I tried to make myself look as believably asleep as possible. It seemed to work as a few seconds later Slayde spoke.

"Shadow you know that isn't possible." He replied to whatever Shadow's incomplete sentence was.

"I know what I saw Slayde." Shadow retorted. Alexia sighed.

"I can remember hearing about GUN doing some experiments around that time. Though I'm not completely sure." Alexia added into the pot. Whatever they were talking about confused me. It couldn't be about me. They were just worried about waking me because I was injured. That was all.

"You would have been what? 8 at the time? How would you have even known about that?" Slayde cut across. I could feel Alexia's irritation from over where I was it was that strong.

"I was older than that. And besides was more than 18 years ago." Alexia retorted in a harsh whisper. "We are taking it no further." She stated, likely at a reply to Slayde's questioning look.

"Let's just go to bed and we'll talk about it some other time." Shadow announced exasperatedly.

"Yeah.. Night guys." Alexia stated, I heard them all stand up and shuffle across to the beds nearby, as soon as everyone laid down I once again fell into a deep sleep.

_Hope you enjoyed that chapter! The fun's just beginning for our main cast and I wonder what it is that made Shadow so upset... Hmmm. I guess you'll find out in the later chapters ;)_


	5. Time to play Catch up?

_Chapter 4: Time to play Catch up?_

My dreams were strange and muddled. Nothing seemed to be making sense except for the fact that Shadow seemed to be present in every dream, every aspect of it seemed to involve Shadow. I suddenly found that we were running. Running from what or where too I didn't know, but we did seem to be in the forest. We ran from what seemed like hours as he held my hand, almost pulling me along with him. We stopped for a second. A noise sounded from behind and I found myself running again, Shadow pulling me along again in the blink of an eye. I finally got a good look at Shadow. He was worn, cut and bruises seemed to be covering his body even though none of them seemed to be made from a zombie attack. Suddenly we came out on a cliff with an almost dried up river below and another cliff on the other side, a small but deep ravine. This didn't surprise me, though I didn't know why. Shadow glanced back before looking in my eyes.

"Amy, do you trust me?" I nodded to him, suddenly I found myself falling, he had pushed my off the edge! I glanced up, shocked that he would ever do something like that to me as I watched a zombie with blue fur tackle him off the side right after me. Looks like I wasn't going to be the only one who died. I glanced down to see the ground fast approaching.

I awoke with a start. Getting myself tangled up in the covers and falling off the edge, hitting the back of my head. It was very odd considering I knew that I fell asleep on top of the covers.

"Are you okay?" Shadow asked as he leant off the bed I was just on, I chocked as I tried to say yes. Forgetting for a few moments that I couldn't speak the day before. I nodded. Shadow hopped off the bed that it seemed that we were both in and pulled me up. I had a dizzy wave and almost fell. Shadow had to catch me to prevent me from falling flat on my face. He forced me to sit on the bed as he walked away from the bed. "Stay there for a minute until you feel okay."

"Ahhh, nothing like the sound of zombies pounding at your blockade in the morning." Slayde stated a little too merrily, following Shadow to wherever he was going. I looked at him weirdly until Alexia came and sat next to me.

"Know why Shadow was sleeping next to you?" She asked me. I just shrugged, I had no clue. Alexia smiled and looking in the direction of the guilty hedgehog as he pulled out some stuff from the fridge. "I think he likes you." She stated as we both watched him pull an electric cooker seemingly out of nowhere. Shoving... Something... Under the grill. I couldn't make it out from over here. I nodded. Of course Shadow liked me, we were best friends. "No likes you. As in loves you, lusts for you. All that stuff." I stared at her for a second, trying to work out whether she was serious or not. Shadow's emotions had never displayed either of those emotions towards... Well anyone. He was like a little ice cube. I shook my head and Alexia shrugged. "Sure seems like it. Anyway, I'm going to oversee the bacon cooking. You coming?" She stated as she stood and walked away. I pulled myself up. The dizziness had gone, I moved my hand to my head to find the scab had gone and the quills were well on their way to regrowing. I smiled slightly as I made my way over to where everyone seemed to be congregating. As soon as I made it over Slayde seemed to change topic of conversation.

"So then Shadow. What were you doing in the same bed as Rose?" He asked. Shadow sighed as Slayde turned over the bacon.

"I needed to keep an eye on her. She was tossing and turning all night. I was closest to the barricade, so I was the one who got woken up. I thought I'd watch it from Rose's bed while I kept an eye on her. She was trying to say things all night, all that came out were strange whispering noises though. Don't know what was bugging her out so much..." Everyone turned to me. Much to my annoyance. I glared at him, he just smirked back. I shrugged to the group, trying to get across that I had no idea what he was talking about I noticed that Slayde was looking at Shadow and not me however, then Shadow and Alexia got distracted by Slayde suddenly calling out.

"It's ready!" As he started plating up bacon in bread. Shadow grabbed mine and his before motioning me to follow him. I followed without argument to a small table with four chairs. He placed the food down in the seat next to him. I sat down and started eating quite quickly, not realising just how hungry I was. I had already finished by the time Alexia and Slayde came and sat down.

"Okay." Shadow started. "So we're going to leave in a few minutes. We have nothing we need with us and everything is already in the van. What I'm going to do is, throw something down the elevator shaft at the far end, create a diversion. That way we can ride down the elevator and hopefully not get seen until we're in the van. Any questions?" There was a silence as no one wanted to disagree with Shadow except me. But I couldn't talk. "Good! Get ready near the elevator just there once you've eaten. I'll be waiting." I looked to him to see that he had somehow managed to eat and talk at the same time at an incredible rate. I sighed and slowly ate my second bacon sandwich without complaint, not that I'd have been able to speak even if I wanted to but I did have to admit that I did quite enjoy the bacon sandwich. Shadow was off in the distance talking to Slayde and I couldn't work out what it was exactly that Alexia was doing as she seemed to be nowhere in sight. I placed the last piece of food in my mouth before walking over to Slayde and Shadow.

"Is doing that such a good idea though, most of them will be on the stairs." Slayde was questioning Shadow. I just stood there and listened, unable to post my comments.

"Well if we are forced to fight the ones downstairs then we will have them all hear anyway. I bet you that a lot of them trying to get through the barricade wouldn't give up anyway. Just don't argue Slayde, it's for the best." Shadow retorted, Slayde rolled his eyes. I knew as well as he did that Shadow was as stubborn as a mule when he got an idea in his head. Everyone knew that arguing with Shadow when he was in this state was suicide.

Slayde of course was just the same.

"If we can sneak down quietly, without drawing any off the stairs, the ones that are left in the middle will likely be extremely disorientated. It'd be easy for me and you to sneak up on them and knock them out silently." Slayde retorted. Shadow gave him a murderous looked.

"Rose what do you think?" Shadow asked me. I just stood there rooted to the spot, eyes wide and looking at them both almost glaring at me to side with either one. If I could have squeaked I think I probably would have.

"I think Slayde has a better point." The voice of Alexia came from behind me as I turned. She was carrying a rather bulky bag along with what looked like a famas from the black ops game. Slayde was pointing and staring at the bag with his mouth opening and closing.

"And where, may I ask, did you get those?" Shadow questioned her. Alexia shrugged, her secretive side coming across again. I looked to Shadow, knowing that he was about to press for answers, so we would be standing here waiting for ages. "Fine then, I won't ask." Shadow stated as I looked at him in shock. Even Slayde gave him a bit of a funny look.

"A Shadow that doesn't press for answers? Now I know for sure it's the end of the world!" Slayde chuckled to himself. Shadow seemed to ignore him, but as soon as he thought no one but Slayde was looking he gave him a look that meant he would get him back when he least expected it. Slayde of course just smirked at the challenge.

"So what? We go down, all guns blazing and attract zombies for possibly miles around? Yeah, great idea." Shadow commented irritated, Alexia just pulled a silencer out and started fixing it on in a reply.

"I still say that my idea is best." Shadow muttered with extreme annoyance. Although I agreed with the others, I could help but feel sorry for Shadow who was just trying to think of the group. I went up to him and hugged him.

"Well it's obvious who Rose is siding with." Slayde commented as I nuzzled his arm. He blushed slightly, I suppressed my gasp, Alexia was right, Shadow _did_ have some feelings for me.

"Either way, we can't stay here. What's it going to be?" Shadow asked the other two. While Slayde kept his face hard Alexia shrugged.

"We'll go with your idea then I guess." She told Shadow before turning to Slayde. Shadow quickly ran to the other side of the building. "You remind me of someone I used to know." She told Slayde.

"Cool." Slayde replied. Alexia frowned.

"I hate him." She finished. Slayde's face dropped. "Because I loved him, and he left me."

"Oh, I see." Slayde replied. Quite confused and not quite sure what to say. Nor why she was telling him this.

"So if you're serious about liking me, you best not die." Alexia finally concluded, the dumbstruck Slayde just standing there staring at her with his mouth open. "Aren't you supposed to run up to me and kiss me or something?" She asked amused. "Or are the guns too scary?" She teased mockingly. He moved from where he stood to her in less than an instant, left hand on the back of her head and the other on her shoulder. When they parted Slayde smirked.

"No they're not, you do that all by yourself." Slayde told her, she giggled.

"Sorry, I seem to have that effect on people." She replied as I heard a wolf whistle behind me, Shadow was back then.

"About time, I was thinking you'd never do anything, it is the end of the world after all." Shadow announced merrily.

"Then don't you think it's your turn?" Alexia asked Shadow as she glanced from him to me. Shadow frowned.

"Shut it." He told her. He glanced at me to see me staring at him. "We need to get moving, the distraction will only last so long." He told us all before rushing off to the elevator. I was confused, I couldn't tell whether he liked me or not. I quickly made my way towards the elevator while Slayde and Lexi held each others hands.

I stepped in with Shadow, Slayde and Alexia were in front of us. I looked over to see Shadow's hand relaxed and yet not at the same time. I quickly snaked my fingers and entwined them with his. He turned to looked at me, but I put my finger to my lips and he didn't say anything, but a smile crept onto his face and I was suddenly hit with it. Shadow's true feelings, his emotions suddenly hit me so hard I almost felt them as a physical thing. He loved me, he more than loved me. I didn't really understand why I could never feel it before. I almost kissed him right than and there, and it would have been more than just a small peck on the mouth.

Everyone else continued, completely unaware to the revelation that I had just experienced. Before I knew it the elevator doors had opened, and I had to let go of his hand. I could feel my disappointment, and his as he pulled his hand away from mine. The doors opened, and there were no zombies. Seemed Shadow had the right call. Unspeaking, the group moved across the mall, luckily they weren't that far from the entrance one zombie noticed them and started shambling towards them. Alexia dropped the bag of guns and was over by the zombie in less than a second, it's neck had been broken. All three of us blinked.

"You move pretty fast." Shadow whispered. Alexia gave him a look as if to say 'Wait until we're in the van.' Which Shadow nodded to. Slayde had picked up the bag, which he handed silently to Alexia, looking at her curiously. She shrugged before whispering something I couldn't catch. We made it outside, and for a second the sun blinded us. Thankfully there were no zombies around in the sun. I let in a breath of relief as we made it to the van. It was scratched and had blood all over it, but seemed to be completely undamaged other than that. I marvelled at what it must have been made of. We got inside, and before I knew it we was driving back out, Slayde was driving, Shadow came to see how I was, but I was more concerned about the supplies.

"It was a cold night last night, thankfully. Seems all the supplies are still fresh." Alexia comforted my unspoken worry. I wondered what she was just reading my body language or whether she could simply read minds.

"It's going to take us a while to get back." Shadow hinted. Alexia looked at him simply.

"Nap time then?" She asked sweetly, I would have laughed if I could, and I did much to my surprise. "Well that's good, means your voice should be back tomorrow." Alexia commented.

"So about what happened in there, and what you said to Slayde." Shadow commented. Alexia rolled her eyes.

"So I was right, you have very good hearing. But can you hear this?" Alexia asked, her mouth moving to what looked like a whistle but nothing coming out, yet I felt as if I could hear something, it was just blocked. Slayde flinched, Shadow blinked.

"What was that?" Slayde exclaimed concentrating on the road.

"Yes I could hear that, how do you make the sound so high pitch?" Shadow asked, Alexia shrugged.

"I don't know, but even dogs can't hear it, so if you can then you're probably something more than a Mobian. The both of you." Slayde nodded mutely, Shadow frowned.

"So you can hear it?" Shadow asked. Alexia smirked.

"How would I know it does anything if I couldn't. Use your head." Alexia replied a little harshly.

"So the speed?" Shadow questioned. Alexia sighed.

"I'm a fair bit older than I look." Alexia told them.

"I had guessed that, funnily enough. How old?" Shadow replied inquisitively.

"Didn't your mother teach you to never ask a lady's age?" Alexia replied quiet quickly. "I'd rather not say, but lets just say it's longer than you've been alive."

"You know my real birthday?" Shadow asked.

"I know a lot of things that GUN know." Alexia replied calmly, looking over to me to see how I was doing, but I was too busy watching their conversation with extreme interest.

"So you work for GUN?" Shadow asked coolly. Alexia smirked.

"No, but I think I helped found it... Much to my horror later on. I just like getting things out of people, when you know how, it's almost easy." Alexia told him, Shadow raised an eyebrow.

"Helped found it?" Shadow asked, Alexia shrugged.

"I was the only 'threat' around when they did so." Alexia replied. "Well me and my lover, but he's long gone."

"This lover of yours-" I squeezed Shadow's shoulder and he stopped the question immediately. "Sorry, erm. So what do you know about Chaos?" He changed, I was glad he listened to my warning because it didn't look like something that she was ready to talk about.

"Lots. Much more than you do. When you're as old as I am you just start learning things without even noticing you're doing it." Alexia informed him. "It's hard to explain really, but if you're in need of proof..." She pulled out a water bottle from the various supplies that they had managed to get out. She held it for a few seconds before passing it to Shadow. I noticed condensation forming around it.

"You turned it to ice?" Shadow questioned disbelievingly. Alexia nodded.

"I can do a few other things with the other elements, but ice is my best." Alexia explained.

"My mum only briefly touched the subject of there being Elements in Chaos." Shadow told her. Alexia nodded.

"I don't blame her, it's a difficult thing to learn, harder even to control. I learned in an isolated place on a snowy mountain. Ahh, good times." She muttered to herself as she looked up at the roof of the van. Everyone was silent for some time. Before Slayde finally spoke

"Time for some music!" He announced, Shadow's eyes opened in shock.

"No wait!" He cried, but it was too late. The music was so loud that I wasn't even sure if I could hear myself thinking for about ten minutes afterwards.

"Come back to me, it's almost easy!" The van shook from the music. Slayde turned it off again immediately.

"My bad guys." Slayde muttered, I couldn't really hear him through my damaged ears.

"Haven't you heard mum listening to that thing, I can hear it two blocks away!" Shadow shouted at Slayde. It was rare for Shadow to lose his rag. Very rare.

"Whoa, calm down bro." Slayde told him.

"You probably just attracted half the city to us." Shadow retorted.

"Good thing we're moving pretty fast then." Slayde retorted. Shadow looked out the front.

"That's odd, on the way here there were far more cars on the road." Shadow told him.

"Yes, that is odd." Alexia chipped in. "Maybe someone came through here with a car plough or something." She joked, the two of them looked at each other.

"She wouldn't have." Slayde denied.

"We're almost there. Let's see for ourselves." Shadow replied.

"Who wouldn't have what?" I wanted to ask, of course my question went unasked and two minutes later we had made it back, only about 12 hours late. Not much, the bus was still there at least, yet something was wrong. The front door was open, as was the garage door.

"Oh god." Shadow exclaimed. "I'll go in, see what's happened." He told the group. Slayde instantly objected.

"I'm the oldest, I'll be going in." He told Shadow in one of the most authoritative tones I had ever heard him use. Shadow shrugged, not willing to argue. Slayde quickly jumped out and ran into the house. He glanced around for a moment before going out of sight. A few minutes of silence followed.

"He should be back by now." Commented Shadow. Alexia nodded. I just sat there, a little horror struck. The whole situation was finally beginning to sink in. It was the end of the world. I'd never see some people again, I'd never see my parents again. My hand went in my pocket and felt the letter that they had left me. I needed to read it, but not now. Not unless I was alone. I sighed and Shadow turned around, his eyes glancing at my hand in my pocket. "It'll be fine." He reassured. I wasn't sure if he was talking about Slayde, the situation in general or the letter in my pocket. Then Slayde finally came out of the house, a little bit of red staining his fur.

"One of the fuckers bit me. God I hope this doesn't mean I'm screwed." He commented as he got in the drivers seat. "From what I can tell, someone left the door open by accident. Seems everyone got away except for that poor wasp that was bitten before." He told us, he looked to Shadow. "Here, Maria left us a message." As he passed it to him.

"I need to see to your wound." Alexia told him. He turned around with anger on his face.

"They're all swarming. I need to get us out of here and then you can do it." Slayde retorted, I'd never seen him so out of control with himself before, Alexia hesitated.

"Then you best get driving." She told him, suddenly the temperature dropped a couple of degrees and the sun went out. I could still see it cover the road meters in front of us, getting away at a faster pace than needed. The engine roared to life just as one of the walkers rammed itself into the window of the door, yet Slayde was unfazed and just started driving. Silence enveloped them for a moment before Shadow started to read.

"'The girl left the door open last night when she went for a smoke and some of them made it in. I managed to hold them off long enough for everyone to get into my experimental motor van. We were forced to leave, I'm sorry Shadow, Slayde. But I know you two can take care of yourself, if you're even affected by this virus I would be surprised. Keep care of Amy, she's a nice girl and has grown on me in the years I have known her. That teacher of yours knows a lot more than she's letting on I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than me, the look in her eyes. Trust her judgement, and try to make it to us. We're in Sunkiss Village, we'll try wait for as long as we can there. Really we need you to get here with those supplies, I have enough for a couple of weeks, but that won't last us a trip through the forest. You have three days starting midnight tonight. You'll probably get this tomorrow though, so bear that in mind. I'll see you soon, Maria.'" Shadow quoted. Before sighing, he walked over to the sofa bed and collapsed on it. Within minutes his chest was rising and falling in a constant rhythm.

"Shadow, stop faking it, I need you to take over the wheel." Slayde told him as his arm slumped and he started driving one handed I glared at Slayde, Shadow was allowed to rest if he wanted to. Yet the gradual breathing stopped instantly and he opened his eyes before sighing.

"Yeah, sorry. I lost it for a second then. What's the plan?" Shadow asked, swapping with Slayde in the middle of driving, such was their speed. Thankfully it was automatic.

"Well I think I need to-" And with the he collapsed, Shadow resisted pulling over to see if he was okay purely because Alexia had shouted Slayde's name and caught him before he hit the ground. Lifting him like he was nothing more than a rag doll, I quickly jumped off the end of the bed and got on the swivel chair, so that Alexia had the whole bed to look at him.

"He's got a fever, we're going to need some aspirin, or something else to bring the fever down." Alexia told us both. I quickly started rummaging through all the supplies we had gotten, surely there was something in here. "Shadow did you pick any up at the shop?" She asked, I looked up to see Shadow shaking his head. "Then we have none, we're going to need to stop at some kind of pharmacy." I looked to Shadow who didn't even react. "Shadow, if you're lucky this could very well save your brother." Shadow hit the breaks.

"I get it, okay." Shadow announced angrily. "This isn't easy for me, this is the first time I've seen him ill, ever. He quickly stuck it in reverse, spinning the van round in a perfect 180 before accelerating in the opposite direction and taking a turn that Slayde wouldn't have took because he didn't know at the time where they were heading. The journey to the pharmacy took fifteen minutes in which no one spoke, Alexia did everything she could to Slayde's wound, but his fever just kept getting worse.

"I'm going in." Alexia stated. Shadow frowned.

"No I should go." He told her. She gave him a furious look.

"What because I'm a woman? Do you even know what you're looking for? No I didn't think so." She stated quite quickly, too fast for me to really work out what happened in the exchange. Shadow seemed a bit dazed too. He watched Alexia make her way to the building and fumble with the lock for a little before sitting down next to Slayde and putting his hand on his shoulder.

"You'll be okay bro." Shadow muttered quietly. I held my arms out and he looked at me and smiled before coming and giving me a hug. This was the 'weakest' I'd ever seen Shadow. It was quite disturbing. The back door suddenly opened and Shadow moved away too fast for me to realise.

"Hey guys, we're going to need to find somewhere to hold up for the night. The winds are picking up and are probably going to cause one hell of a storm. I'd rather not be caught out in it with these things on the loose. The pharmacy is clear... Now. I opened the garage where they take deliveries. I think we should just hold up in there." She concluded. I looked to Shadow who nodded and made his way to the drivers seat and quickly reverse into the barely visible garage door before hopping out and pressing the button to close it.

"Rose, you sleep on the wall side of the bed. Slayde can stay on the other side, it's big enough for two people." Shadow commanded me. I looked at him, wondering where he was going to go. Not much I could do without my voice though. I carefully moved myself to the far side of the bed as Alexia took position in the swivel chair, watching Slayde. I turned to the wall, and taking up as little space as possible tried to get to sleep. Just as I was sleeping on the edge of consciousness they started talking again.

"So you don't have to either, huh?" Alexia asked Shadow.

"No, I can't have slept more than forty eight hours since I was born." Shadow replied. "At least Rose is sleeping, it'll give her a good break from it all. I'll take first watch and come and get you if I see anything unusual, well, extra unusual." I could practically hear the forced smirk in his voice.

"I'll come and get you if there's any change to his condition." Alexia reassured him, I presumed he must have been looking at Slayde.

"Thanks, see you in the morning." Shadow told her as he jumped out the back and closed it behind.

"Yeah, in the morning." Alexia mumbled. Though I doubted Shadow missed it anyway. I finally felt sleep taking me without anyone talking and within seconds I was dreaming again.

* * *

><p>Okay, sorry this took so long. Been doing a lot. Moved house, cities even. Glad I've finally got back my writing again! Hopefully have something else up by the end of the week, not sure what story it'll be on though! R&amp;R and feel free to PM me, I get lonely!<p> 


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